Love at First Date
by AlmeidaFluff
Summary: Post-S2. High-fluff T&M romantic comedy. 24 chapters. Pls. take a minute to review! I love hearing from you! xxxooo
1. His Mission

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 1: His Mission_

His face was flushed and he felt a little dazed as he made his escape from the building. It had been among the more harrowing missions he'd ever undertaken, but he had come through it unscathed, or at least for the most part. It was no small accomplishment, either, considering how new and unaccustomed he was to dealing with this type of assignment. It was a first for him — and a last, if he had anything to say about it.

His brow was still damp from the light sweat he'd broken into when he handed the money over to the young woman, who had kept him standing impatiently as she took her sweet time neatly rearranging each bill, face-side up, before finally releasing the package to him. The waiting had been torturous. He could feel the the eyes of the other people around him staring a hole in his back. All he could think of was exiting that place at lightning speed and never returning again.

Now outside in the cool air, he fished his cuff from the sleeve of his worn-out leather jacket and ran it across his upper lip and brow. The whole ugly episode had just begun to replay itself in his head when, gratefully, his thoughts were interrupted by the jangling of his cell phone.

"Almeida..."

"I was beginning to wonder if you were still alive."

"Just barely," Tony scowled, scanning the sea of cars, which seemed to have doubled in the short amount of time he'd been inside. "How are you making out?"

"Better than you, it sounds like. Did you get it?"

"Yeah, I got it," he grumbled, jockeying the package from one arm to the other and methodically patting himself down for his keys. "Listen, do me a favor and don't ever make me do a pickup like that again, okay? The girl at the counter couldn't have been more than seventeen."

A weak giggle emanated from the other end of the phone.

"Don't tell me you've never been sent on a tampon run before."

"No," he replied, his voice tinged with a mixture of annoyance and befuddlement. "A tampon run. That's what you women call it? It was embarrassing as hell."

"Well, now you know how we women feel when there's a guy behind the cash register," she giggled again.

"The things I'm willing to do for you, Michelle," he groused, now frantically conducting a second pat-down of his pockets, horrified by the prospect of having left his keys on the counter, which would necessitate going back inside and facing that girl again. He could've sworn she was checking out his hand for a wedding ring as he'd fumbled through his wallet for the cash. Then she had given him that grin — that knowing grin. God, the whole scene had been mortifying. He felt as though his life had been put on display, right there on the counter, for every customer in the place to view: single man; woman back home in dire need of tampons; she asks sweetly; he whines; she pouts; he relents... He couldn't remember ever having exited a building so fast in his life. Not even under gunfire.

Sweet relief flooded through him as he shifted the package again and heard his keys clanking around inside. How they had gotten in there, he had no idea; nor did he care.

"I don't suppose you're up to eating anything," he asked cautiously, recalling how deathly pale Michelle had looked as he was heading out the door earlier.

There was a moment of silence before she responded.

"I'm really sorry about all this," she said. "I just get so sick to my stomach sometimes."

"Yeah, I couldn't help but notice," he said, but with genuine sympathy as he flashed back to the better part of the night they had spent in his bathroom, where he'd stood with an arm around her waist, holding her hair back as she dry-heaved her guts out, over and over again. After about the fifth or sixth time, he decided to park them both on the floor: he with his back against the tub and Michelle stretched out beside him, resting her head his in lap. It had made more sense to just stay put at that point, since no sooner would he get her back into bed when the nausea would begin to consume her all over again.

"Did you get hold of the doctor yet?" he asked, cradling the phone in his shoulder as he slid behind the wheel and tossed the precious cargo onto the floor. He made a mental note to order a case of those things and stash boxes of them everywhere he could think, to spare himself from ever having to go through that scene again.

Her voice hesitated on the other end.

"Umm… well, no, not exactly," she said, hoping not to incite another round of the exchange they'd had early that morning, when Tony was moments away from bundling her in a blanket and taking her to the emergency room. She had appeased him by promising to call her doctor first thing in the morning. It was a white lie — well, a flat-out, full-blown lie, to be precise — but it had successfully put the kibosh on the emergency room plan.

"Did you even try calling him?"

"There's no need, Tony. Trust me," she assured him. "This just happens sometimes."

"But can't they at least give you something for it? I mean — geezis, Michelle, I thought you were gonna die last night."

"I already have something. Those prescription pills I took, remember?"

"Yeah, well, they don't work, I hate to tell ya."

"Nah, they just have a reverse effect every now and again," she said lightly, hoping her calm, casual tone would help to soothe his rattled nerves. "Normally, they work just fine."

She intentionally left out the part about the reverse effect occurring only when she took the pills on an empty stomach. She didn't want Tony to feel in any way responsible, since they never did quite make it to the restaurant last night. But that was her doing. En route she had leaned in and whispered for him to pull over for a minute, confessing that she was dying for him to kiss her; that she didn't think she could bear to wait all night for the traditional end-of-date kiss at the doorstep. Tony, who'd been rendered somewhat breathless by her request, and only too willing to fulfill it, had careened across three lanes and illegally parked up on an embankment before gathering her into his arms. After an endlessly long, feverish kiss, dinner-and-a-movie had turned into hours of torrid lovemaking at his apartment, instead. But later, just as they were about to engage in yet another blissful session, the telltale signs of nausea that plagued Michelle every month unexpectedly crept up on her, out of the blue. She quickly fished two of her trusty pills from the little silver box she kept in her purse, but had stupidly forgotten the golden rule about eating something before taking them. And the rest was history. The first half of the night had been the greatest in her life; the second half had been the absolute worst.

Tony waited at a red light, mindlessly rubbing his forehead back and forth. He didn't understand all this complicated female stuff. The entire business made him nervous and uncomfortable, especially when he had to actually talk about it. Although myriad women had breezed in and out of his life for years, he had somehow managed to miraculously escape dealing with their "feminine issues." Now, as luck would have it, the woman who'd stolen his heart out from under him — whom he already knew he'd be proposing to someday, just as soon as he could gather his wits, purchase a ring, and conjure the courage — was seemingly plagued with some kind of bizarre premenstrual-puking malady, with which he'd be contending, now, for the next twenty years of his life. He felt the familiar layer of sweat beading up on his brow again. They hadn't covered any of this in the medic training he'd received in the Marines. He felt like a fish out of water.

"Listen," he said, eager to change the subject, "since this is looking like a couch night, I'm gonna stop and get us some movies. Anything in particular you feel like seeing?"

"Umm...," Michelle pondered aloud for a moment, smiling as it occurred to her that he didn't appear to be planning on taking her home anytime soon. He had evidently made an executive decision to keep her for awhile — like some stray puppy he'd found in a parking lot and had decided to keep for a day or two before taking it to the pound.

"Just don't make me sit through a chick-flick," he pleaded in the classic male whine. "I've had all I can take of you women today."

"You poor thing," Michelle chuckled, clutching her sore stomach muscles. It was more than amusing to see Tony in such an uncharacteristically hapless state. His demeanor was normally so smooth and unflappable; a man comfortable in his own skin, confident in his ability to handle whatever challenge came his way. It was a trait that had attracted her from day one on the job, when she had walked into an office in full-crisis mode. To witness him now, utterly unhinged by a box of tampons and a ditzy seventeen-year-old cashier, was beyond entertaining.

"Just nothing too gory, okay?" she responded, meeting him halfway. "We get enough of that on the job."

Tony smiled. "Okay, sweetheart. I'll be home soon."

Michelle sank back into the thick bed pillows piled in the corner of the couch, which he had propped her up against before heading out on his ill-fated mission. Sweetheart... Home... She played his words over in her head again, luxuriating in how softly and gently he'd said them. He had called her "sweetheart" in the heat of passion a number of times last night, but hearing him use it outside of the bedroom seemed to elevate its significance to a whole other level.

Or maybe she was just assigning more significance than was warranted, out of sheer wishful thinking on her part.

In truth, she wasn't sure how or what Tony was likely feeling. Usually by this point in time, she would have already analyzed her date inside and out, contemplating every possible meaning behind each word and action; working up an assessment of how well things had gone and where she logically stood in the eyes and mind of the man; calculating the probability of a second date; roughing out projections of when he would call her, where he might take her, which topics of discussion might arise, etc. But up until this moment, she had consciously gone out of her way to avoid thinking about last night — even the good part, before she had reduced herself to a heaving fool. She couldn't bear to consider the possibility that she had gone and ruined it all, after he had been so loving and tender with her; so consumed with passion as he kissed and held and tantalized her in ways she'd never experienced before. The things he had whispered to her... The places he had touched her... The spots he had kissed and licked and nibbled and caressed... The long, smooth, rhythmic thrusts that had slowly and steadily pushed her over the edge, leaving her writhing in his arms, struggling to regain her breath, and wanting more.

She didn't have the courage to contemplate what he might be thinking of her now, after having witnessed all those ensuing hours of her less-than-graceful retching, with her head wedged halfway inside the bowl. She groaned and covered her face with her hands, hard-pressed to imagine anything that could possibly turn a man off faster. He was probably having regrets, she began convincing herself. He was probably just being kind to her because of the sorry condition she was in.

For a fleeting moment she considered calling a cab. But then she would have to leave him a note and wouldn't know what to say:

"Dear Tony: Thanks for everything. Especially for saving me from drowning in your toilet last night. Gotta run! Warmest regards, Michelle."

Or maybe just "M," with one of those smiley faces beside it, so he'd know that she was fine with the way things had turned out and that he needn't worry about her hanging herself by her pantyhose the minute she got home.

Michelle turned onto her side, facing the back of the couch, and rearranged the throw blanket Tony had tucked around her before he'd left. The first twinges of cramps were beginning, but she didn't dare take her pain medication. Not until she was ready to eat something first. That's all she needed was for Tony to come home and find her stoned out and babbling incoherently about how huge a loser she's always been with men.

"Home." She still liked the way that word had sounded coming out of his mouth before. Maybe there was still hope. Maybe her fears were just symptomatic of this god-awful PMS she suffered every month. She was probably better off not thinking about things right now. Time and fate would tell If she had blown a future with him. She would try to stay upbeat and positive, and pretend as though the second half of their very first date had never even happened. Maybe, by some miracle, it hadn't thoroughly alienated him. Who knew. But if nothing else, at least her dreams had been fulfilled. She would always have the memories of last night — the good part — to carry around in her heart for the duration of her life — her lonely, loser, spinster life.

A half mile away, Tony's heart was soaring as he tossed the DVDs onto the passenger seat and started the engine. He missed Michelle already and was tempted to call her again, just to hear her laughter, but figured she had probably fallen asleep by now. Or at least he hoped that she had, since neither of them had slept at all the entire night before. He wouldn't have fallen asleep anyway. He would've spent that time, instead, watching her dozing beside him and recalling every thrilling moment he had spent lost in her arms. He'd had his fair share of romances and one-night stands along the way, but no woman in his life had ever built him up to those heights before, unleashing so many raw emotions inside him. He'd felt so connected and uninhibited with her, on the one hand; so virginal and shy on the other. The level of passion she'd brought him to in those last few, final moments, when he'd released himself, over and over, with such intensity and fury, had sent him collapsing into her arms in a trembling heap. Awhile later, as she was mercilessly seducing him into another frenzy, he wallowed in the sound of her enchanting laughter when he had facetiously clutched his heart and made her promise him something: that if she inadvertently gave him a heart attack in the middle of making love, she'd clean him up and dress him so that it would look as though he had simply died of natural causes in his sleep. That way, he explained, his mother could be spared the shock and embarrassment of knowing the true circumstances surrounding his death.

Tony entered the apartment quietly, careful not to jiggle the keys too loudly in the lock, and found her resting peacefully under his prized Cubs blanket. This was definitely love, all right, he noted to himself. From the day his grandfather had given him that blanket, back when he was a teenager, it had been strictly hands-off to family, buddies and girlfriends alike. He smiled down at her warmly, now, studying the outline of her frail body tucked beneath it, and the bright splash of silky curls spilling out over the top. What a rough time she'd been through. He'd never seen anyone so sick in his life. Not even back in his college days. Every muscle, from her neck to her abdomen, must be sore as hell, he thought. From the force of all that relentless heaving, he was surprised she hadn't cracked a rib.

She stirred a little as he sat himself down on the edge of the couch beside her, tampon box clutched in hand. He didn't know what he was supposed to do: Had she been desperate for him to get home with them, and fallen asleep while patiently awaiting his arrival? Or did she need them for later, after she had run out of whatever she had in that purse of hers? God, he hated this female stuff. He quickly stood up to remove his jacket before he could break into another sweat. This time he allowed the keys in his pocket to jangle loudly, like sleigh bells, in the hopes she'd wake up and take the box away from him. Maybe if he rattled some things around in the kitchen... or perhaps the smell of coffee brewing might rouse her...

He suddenly felt the sensation of fingertips softly caressing the back of his thigh through his jeans.

"My hero," he heard her say, with a sleepy croak in her voice. "I knew you could do it."

He turned around to see her grinning up at him, still struggling to fully open her heavy eyes. Dropping his jacket to the floor, he sat back down alongside her. Her hands reached out and he leaned in to assist her in locking her fingers behind his neck.

"Did I wake you?" he asked in all innocence, flashing her the best soulful, puppy-eyed expression his tired eyes could muster.

"Not much, dear," she admonished him in dry voice, fully cognizant of the lame ploy he had concocted to awaken her.

Tony moved in closer and apologetically kissed her nose and lips and chin, then laid his head down against her chest. His cheek nuzzled the old faded grey t-shirt he had slipped her into the night before, somewhere in between her third and fourth puking episode. He listened to his own low, contented sighs intermixing with the soothing sound of her heartbeat as her delicate fingers circled gently through his hair. Another minute of this and he'd be unconscious, he knew. He wanted to carry her back to bed for a couple of hours of desperately needed sleep, but he was too tired to conjure the energy. And too hungry to sleep, besides.

The box of tampons, still clutched in his hand, caught Michelle out of the corner of her eye, and she had to fight to keep herself from bursting into laughter.

"Is this for me?" she cooed sweetly, taking his wrist and drawing the box closer for inspection. It looked like it had been through the war, with all the dents and creases his tense grip had created.

"It's a cake. I made it myself," he answered with a self-deprecating chuckle, feeling the weight of the world lift as she liberated it from his hand.

"You're so multi-talented," she smiled, thanking him with a kiss to each knuckle. "How are you at making toast?"

"I'm good at toast," he said, raising his head and gazing up at her through bleary eyes. "I'm really good at showers and sleeping, too."

He didn't want her fingers to stop caressing his head, but nevertheless dragged himself onto his feet and stretched for a moment, hoping to cajole his body into manufacturing enough energy to chew. Michelle reached her hands out and he pulled her into a standing position on the couch, kissing her through her t-shirt, here and there.

"I'll man the toaster," he said, lifting her off the couch with ease and sliding her down his body. "And you — you do whatever it is you women do. Just don't put that box in a place where I'll ever see it again, okay?"

"You're pitiful, Almeida," she said, shaking her head as he turned her by her shoulders in the direction of the bedroom.

"Go," he ignored her, delivering a playful love-pat to her hind quarter and strolling off in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen.

"I want to watch you shave later," he heard her voice echo from down the hallway.

"You can watch me do anything you want," he called back, "after I devour half of everything in this refrigerator." He crouched down and hungrily peered inside to see what his housekeeper had stocked for the week. "Then tonight, after I eat the other half," he continued, giving her fair warning, "it's you, me and — The Guns of Navarone."

A moment later Michelle reappeared, rolling her eyes and pointing his tube of toothpaste at him in an accusatory fashion.

"You got all guy-flicks, didn't you?" she said.

"Not all," he replied in self-defense, his head still lurking inside the refrigerator. "I got one for you that I know you're gonna like — after The Guns of Navarone."

Somehow she got the hint that there wasn't going to be much discussion as to which movie they should view first. She flashed her eyes briefly up toward the heavens, wondering what God must've been thinking — or drinking — when He, in all His infinite wisdom, had come up with the divine concept of "machismo."

"I don't have a toothbrush," she moved on.

"Use mine," he said over his shoulder, closing the refrigerator with his foot and transporting a full armful of food over to the counter.

"Really?" she said, a little surprised. She had already resigned herself to brushing her teeth with her finger if he didn't have a spare stashed away somewhere.

"We've already exchanged virtually every body fluid there is, sweetheart," he matter-of-factly reminded her in a low, easy voice, glancing up just long enough to flash her a shy grin before returning his attention to opening wrappers, popping lids and stuffing things into his mouth.

Out of nowhere, a barrage of mental images from the night before suddenly flooded her mind, accompanied by an exhilarating rush of excitement that caught her off-guard and rendered her a little breathless.

"Okay," she agreed — to what, she suddenly couldn't remember. Her mind was preoccupied with rerunning the images and gasping from the pangs they produced as she floated back down the hallway. He had used that word again — "sweetheart" — compelling her to recall the first time he had tenderly whispered it last night, locking eyes and fingers with her, entering so slowly and sensually and ensconcing himself so deeply inside her; as absorbed in her emotions and desires as he was with his own.

Without thinking, Michelle found herself backtracking to the living room where she studied him for a moment from a few feet away. His back was to her as he loaded bread slices into the toaster and mindlessly clanked a few things around the counter. Approaching him from behind, she slid her arms around his waist.

"Hey," she said, quietly, taking him a little aback with surprise. But he turned and instantly melted into her as her lips hungrily sealed tightly around his own. Her body pushed hard against him, pressing him back against the counter. His powerful arms brusquely swept around her, holding her almost a little too tight, and they kissed and fondled, fast and feverishly, until eventually breaking their mouths away, each in need of an oxygen break.

Arms still around his waist, she rested motionlessly against his shoulder, lavishing the feeling of his palms slowly and soothingly circling against her skin: up the back of her t-shirt, down inside her panties, across the backs and the sides of her thighs.

"I like it when you call me that," she admitted shyly after a moment, feeling a light blush wash across her face.

"Call you what?" he asked, nuzzling her ear.

"'Sweetheart'… I like when you call me 'sweetheart'..."

"I'll have to remember that," he said quietly, closing his eyes for a moment and drinking in the sweet scent of her hair. He liked it when she called him "dear," but suddenly felt a little too bashful to tell her.

"Go finish up," he said instead, kissing her forehead a few last times before sending her on her way. He folded his arms in front of him and remained leaning against the counter, his mouth slightly agape, his fingers dragging slowly along the side of his face, and his eyes glued to her hips swaying gently beneath his long, baggy t-shirt. It was only early Saturday morning and he had until late Sunday night, he figured, to tell her some things he hadn't been quite ready to say the night before: like, how hard she had knocked him back on his heels; how hopelessly in love with her he had fallen; and that he'd probably been in love with her since the first few minutes they had met. Maybe, if he could gather the courage, he would tell her some of those things tonight — after The Guns of Navarone.


	2. Her Shock

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 2: Her Shock_

After she finished brushing her teeth, Michelle devoted a couple of minutes to robotically tidying up the bathroom, just as she always did her own. She was impressed with the size of the room. It was twice, maybe three times, larger than the average rental's, even for a 3-bedroom/3-1/2-bath apartment.. She wondered what size the other bathrooms were, and how the bedrooms were being used.

She would snoop later.

The aroma of coffee and toast had snaked its way in from the kitchen, which meant that Tony would be calling out soon, no doubt melodramatically feigning starvation in the hopes of hurrying her up — despite his having already stuffed the equivalent of a full meal into his mouth while preparing things.

Michelle spied the battle-weary tampon box down at the end of the counter and remembered Tony's plaintiff plea to stash it somewhere safe from his view. She slid a few cabinet drawers open and closed, soon realizing she had no idea which drawers he frequently used, and which were the "safe" ones that he only rarely opened.

"Michelle!" his voice rang own from the kitchen, like clockwork. She quickly decided to stash the box, at least temporarily, in the medicine cabinet over the other sink: the one without his toothbrush hanging directly beneath it.

"Be right there!" she called, swinging open the cabinet door, then promptly taking a startled step backward. Sitting on the shelf amid all the usual products was a box of condoms staring directly at her. She felt the color drain from her face as it suddenly struck her, like a bolt of lightning, that of the several times they'd made love last night, never once had they used a condom. Stunningly enough, and even worse, the thought had never so much as crossed her mind. Nor, apparently, his.

A second bolt struck her even harder when she remembered that she herself had a couple of condoms right in her own purse, in fact. While dressing last night, she had purposely stopped everything and dug them out of her bureau drawer... just in case… because you never know… better safe than sorry… don't leave home without them… friends don't let friends—

"Michelle!"

Tony's voice rang out from the kitchen again, this time a little louder and with the assurance that she was going to find him dead on the floor from starvation (she knew him so well) if she didn't hurry it out there. Quickly jamming the tampon box inside the medicine cabinet, she decided to bring the matter up a little later on, certain that Tony wasn't going to want to engage in a serious discussion about their stunningly irresponsible, abject recklessness until after he'd had breakfast. Again.

Tony's expression transformed from feigned starvation to sincere horror upon laying eyes on Michelle's all too familiar ashen complexion. It was the same shade of ghostly white he had seen on her face last night, right before she'd commenced with her first up-chucking performance of the evening.

His first inclination was to waste no time in implementing Plan-A: rifle through her purse, take custody of her prescription pills, and run them through the garbage disposal, silver box and all, while questioning her sanity at the top of his lungs for having obviously taken another one before eating, for whatever unimaginable, inexplicable reason. It was the shoot-first-ask-questions-later protocol that Tony preferred and generally enacted, given how naturally it came to him and how well he always executed it.

But he decided to initiate Plan-B this time, instead, since Michelle, on the average, seemed to be more forthcoming with the truth when his own demeanor was calm and non-threatening; when his questions to her were courteous and professional; and when he resisted barking in her face, like a rotweiler, demanding that she come clean with him. Running himself through the process, just for his own sake, wouldn't kill him either, Tony had to admit. Patience had never been one of his finer virtues, after all, and he could always use the practice of conducting himself in a more rational, professional, cool-headed manner. Plus, the more he implemented this kinder-n-gentler approach, the better the chances were that Michelle would become used to it, and comfortable with it, and maybe even ultimately like it enough to begin responding truthfully the first time she was questioned, instead of something more like the fourteenth.

Granted, just last week his rotweiler approach had promptly and successfully elicited Jack's location out of her in a little under a minute, while Plan-B, on the other hand, had succeeded in producing nothing more than layer upon layer of lie after lie, hour after hour. But last week's circumstances had been unique and extraordinary, Tony concluded, so he wasn't convinced it was time to permanently retire his alternate, cool-headed approach just yet.

"You feeling okay?" he casually asked in an easy, quiet tone.

Or at least it was quiet on the outside. Inside, he still reserved himself the right to scream like a banshee, and was presently vowing to fire up his laptop's DVD right there in the bathroom, if it came to that. He'd already gotten himself way too jazzed up for the Guns of Navarone tonight, and would be damned if some bizarre premenstrual-puking malady was going to come between Tony Quinn, Tony Quayle, and Tony Almeida.

"Yes. Sure. I'm fine. Everything's fine," Michelle heard herself answer him, with a slight babbling quality to her voice.

"Ya sure you're sure?" he wittily double-checked, covertly taking note of how little contrast seemed to exist between her pearly white teeth and ghostly white lips.

His hands were full, so he used his foot to pull her chair a couple of inches away from the table, gesticulating for her to sit down before she fell down. Michelle knew precisely what Tony was thinking, and fearing, but he wasn't buying "fine" any more than she had expected him to. And since the truth was out of the question, at least for now, there was little else she could do at that point but smile warmly, act casually, and wait for her color to eventually return.

"You would tell me, right?" he triple-checked.

"Of course I would..."

His head cocked itself to the side. He knew better, and wondered why he'd even bothered to ask. Michelle was more than capable of snow-jobbing him, dead to his face, if her better judgment told her that the means were necessary to justify whatever important end she harbored in her head.

Tony sat down across from her, stealing a clandestine glance from his new perch. Normally, he reminded himself, she was pretty pale-white to begin with, so maybe it was just the way the light was hitting her. But his gut said no, and he always listened to his gut, so he decided not to eliminate the possibility that she'd indeed taken another pill on an empty stomach; nor the possibility that he might murder her, if she had.

"If you're getting sick again, you can tell me, y'know," he bargained in a purely professional manner.

"Everything's fine. Really," she lied through her teeth with a warm, reassuring smile.

The truth was, she was far from fine; she felt downright traumatized, although not even precisely sure why. She knew that the chances were next to nil that a mini-Almeida was on the way. She also knew that Tony was "safe" — or at least he was a week ago, according to the lab results of his policy-mandated HIV test, taken every month by active-ready agents and operatives, for whom blood exposure in the field was a routine part of the job. Michelle had even seen his test result with her own eyes when she'd fished it out of his wastepaper basket and pieced it back together in the ladies room.

It was the sheer recklessness of their unprotected actions that had rattled Michelle to the core, she knew. It had been just so unlike her. She was far, far from the careless, irresponsible, throw-caution-to-the-wind type. If anything, she was much more inclined to be overly cautious when it came to such high-stakes matters. And Tony had always struck her, too, as someone who might be willing to take high risks out in the field, but never in the bedroom. Evidently she had misjudged them both and didn't even really know herself, much less him, half as well as she'd thought she had.

But that was a conversation for another time, not now.

Looking across the table, and intent upon removing the deer-in-the-headlights look from his eyes, Michelle held up a piece of toast.

"I have this magic trick I'd like to perform for you, dear. Notice..." She took an oversized bite from its corner and said, through a full mouth, "See? I wouldn't be able to do this if I'd just been sick a minute ago. I wouldn't be able to do this for hours."

She was right. Tony was convinced. Plus, her invocation of the word "dear," and how naturally and comfortably it seemed to breeze from her lips, had left him at a distinct disadvantage: His concentration level had promptly plummeted by approximately sixty percent, rendering him temporarily incapable of continuing his interrogation, even if he had felt the need. The precious remaining forty percent of his focus was now evenly divided between lightly buttering another piece of toast for Michelle, and that fabulous, albeit weird, sensation he got in his throat when she'd called him that word again. It was a feeling similar to the one he got when the woman at the hair-cutting place would wash his hair right before the other woman would cut it.

He returned to taste-testing a variety of things he'd found in the refrigerator. Peering up a minute later, he could see that her coloring was definitely beginning to come back. Maybe she hadn't taken another pill after all. Maybe she had actually decided to tell him the truth right off the bat this time. Maybe there was something more to the calm, rational, professional approach than he had originally realized when he hatched the concept.

The possibility of watching Gregory Peck and the boys from a warm couch instead of a cold tile floor was fast becoming more and more conceivable by the second. He suddenly felt hopeful and positive.

"Want some coffee?" he asked.

"Nah," Michelle said with one side of her mouth filled, which forced her cheek outward, like a squirrel's, and complementing the ear on the other side of her head, which stuck out like an elf's from the weight of the curls parked behind it. "I don't think caffeine would be such a hot idea right now," she added, thinking about their upcoming sleep.

"Yeah," he agreed, getting up from the table and sauntering back from the kitchen a minute later with two glasses of milk. He laid one in front of her, not bothering to ask if she even liked milk, or was allergic to it. In his mind, it was probably the best thing for her stomach right now, after the beating it had taken last night. She understood what he was thinking and smiled up at him with another full mouth of toast, squishing her nose to thank him in lieu of speaking the words. He understood what she was saying, and petted her under her chin before returning to the other side of the table.

She watched him slather a ridiculously excessive amount of butter onto another piece of toast for himself.

"Do you know what that stuff can do to your arteries?" she quizzed him.

"If I die of a heart attack, it's not gonna be the butter that killed me, baby," he assured her in a low, seductive voice, bringing a smile to both their faces. "Do you remember your promise?" he quizzed her back.

His question caught her off-guard and she suddenly burst into laughter, quickly covering her mouth to keep the toast from falling out. Tony beamed with pride at his ability to incapacitate her like that, watching her struggle to swallow without choking and fully prepared to perform the Heimlich Maneuver, if need be.

"Hmmm?" he prompted her again, chuckling a little deeper at the sight of her eyes glistening and her nose beginning to run. Ah, the powers he possessed. He felt his chest expanding by another good inch or two.

"I know, I know," she coughed and convulsed. "If you die of a heart attack while we're making love — clean you up and dress you."

It was that image of cleaning up his corpse that Michelle couldn't quite get past without losing it; particularly since she could easily see herself doing it, not only to indulge his last wishes, but out of basic respect for his mother.

Tony's head tilted back to take in a long drink of milk, but his eyes maintained their smile and fixation on Michelle as she dabbed the dinner napkin under her eyes and nose. Her curls were everywhere, exploding from her head the way daisies exploded from the ground in the spring. He loved her curls. He was mesmerized by them. They always made him a little weak in the knees whenever he would take a moment to study them, which was often. He wished he had some daisies to give her right now, just so she'd have some semblance of an idea of how she made him feel.

Michelle hesitated before glancing over at him, fearing that the sight of his proud, testosterone-saturated smirk and puffed-up chest would set her directly off on another laughing jag. But she caught him staring fondly at her, instead, and her heart melted a little. He looked like he wanted to say something to her, but was still in the process of formulating the words. His eyes captivated her. They were deeper and darker than any she'd ever looked into before. They had the ability to assume so many different shapes and forms and levels of expressions, allowing her to read him like a book, with ease. It was true what they said about eyes: they were indeed the windows to the soul. And Tony's soul was good.

Things got quiet and they didn't speak for a couple of minutes, but that was fine. Neither felt the pressure nor need to say something just for the sake of talking. Sitting in silence felt warm and serene.

She watched his expression transform a few times, from studious, to curious, to analytical, to stumped, as he sat and chewed and contemplated. After a while, when it appeared that he had summarized his thoughts and was just about ready to share them, Michelle was surprised to see his brow suddenly knot up, and his face tighten around the edges.

"Listen, uhh… Do ya think I could ask you a personal question?" he said in a voice that was just as easy-going as before, but with a slightly pained look of confusion and uncertainty in his eyes now.

It made Michelle freeze for a moment, wondering if the whole condom conundrum had finally hit him, too, and was just about to come up for discussion. She knew that he wouldn't be any more worried about a mini-Almeida than she was. Granted, he was hopeless on the subject of feminine protection products — she had made him repeat "The blue box, not the green box" about a dozen times before letting him out of the apartment, and still he came back with the green box — but he certainly knew the fundamentals of anatomy and biology. And since he was the same guy who had just returned from his maiden tampon run, he also knew that at least their recklessness had occurred well within the safety zone.

No, it wasn't a fear of storks. Something far worse was at the root of his upcoming question. He was obviously hemming and hawing and gearing himself up to inquire into how "socially diseased" she may or may not be. And then she was going to have to endure the humiliation of informing him that he didn't have a thing in the world to worry about; that she was as safe as safe was ever going to get, since she hadn't had sex, or even so much as a second date, in eons.

"Sure. You can ask me anything," Michelle said.

Now was probably as good a time as any to get the conversation on the table and over with, since they'd probably be unconscious the entire afternoon. And she certainly wasn't going to be able to bring it up during The Guns of Navarone; of that much she was certain.

"I… uhh..." he said, pausing to claw at his cheek for a moment. "I was just thinking about something..."

"Uh-huh?" she croaked, completely forgetting to sound carefree this time.

"I was wondering, huh… Do you have to, y'know, comb your hair, or brush it, or anything, to get it all curly like that? Or does it just sort of — turn into curls? Y'know, after you wash it?"

Michelle stared at him.

"I mean... while it's drying off," he elaborated, in all earnestness, since her blank expression suggested to him that he might not have explained the wet-to-curls segment of the question sufficiently the first time around.

She felt as though the Governor had just called and granted her a temporary stay. She really hadn't been prepared to talk about last night's reckless behavior just quite yet. She felt like she wanted a little time to think about things first. The quantum mechanics of curls was much more her speed right now. My hero, she thought to herself.

"I'll tell you what..." she said, getting onto her feet and circling around the table. Tony turned sidesaddle in his chair and opened his legs so she could stand between them. His cheek gravitated to its newfound favorite position against her t-shirt as his arms wrapped themselves snuggly around her legs.

"If you'll get the shower going while I throw these things in the dishwasher, I'll assign you to shampoo detail," Michelle continued, gently scratching him behind the ear as one would a household pet, "and that way you can see for yourself how the whole thing works."

He seemed to like that plan. He certainly wasn't objecting. But he wasn't getting up to turn the shower on, either.

"In a minute," he said with a long exhale, simultaneously increasing his embrace around her legs. He wanted to hold onto her just a minute longer. "It's weird," he quietly explained to her t-shirt, "but I keep feeling like I have to touch you sometimes… to make sure."

Her t-shirt likely didn't have a clue what in the world he was talking about, but Michelle did. All morning she'd been feeling the need to touch him, too, just to make sure she was really there with him. Even while he had been out at the pharmacy, carefully selecting the wrong box of tampons, she'd found herself touching the back of his couch, to double-check that it was really his and not her own.

She gently dragged her nails around his expansive shoulders with one hand while continuing to scratch him behind his ear with her other. He seemed to love it. It reminded her of the other savage beast in her life: Fluff-Fluff, her cat, whom she soothed into a comatose state every night while reading for an hour before falling asleep.

Oh, my God! Fluff-Fluff!

It was Saturday. Michelle's housekeeper would be there by now, and had likely already checked his bowl and fed him. But Michelle made a mental note to call her anyway, just to be on the safe side. She would also ask her to drop by and feed him again in the morning, as she was sure Tony had no intention of releasing his hostage before late tomorrow night, if not Monday morning. An image suddenly entered Michelle's mind of herself seated at her workstation in a faded grey t-shirt and bare feet, but she swiftly pushed it back out.

Tony didn't seem interested in moving a muscle anytime soon. He also had a sensitive question that he apparently felt more comfortable asking her t-shirt than her.

"Are you okay to… y'know, take a shower with — those things?"

Michelle stared down at him, shaking her head in disbelief. She slowly and gently scooped a handful of his hair and tilted his head back until she saw the browns of his eyes.

"Uhh... yes, the FDA finally made them fix that feature, dear. Women no longer melt, now, when someone throws water on them."

"I think I remember reading about that," he smirked.

"Oh, by the way, that reminds me," she added wryly, tilting his head back a little further for emphasis sake. "Shower Rule. No laughing at the white string." Tony was laughing already.

"No laughing at the way water tends to shrink a man's ego," he quickly countered, reluctantly allowing Michelle to rustle him onto his feet. "Even well-endowed egos," he confidently added with a proud, exaggerated smirk and a full body stretch. Michelle shook her head again. She thought she was the one who got to decide how well endowed he was or wasn't, but he, evidently, thought otherwise.

"I'd like to meet the water that can diminish your ego for very long," she seductively one-lined him back, with a shyness in her giggle but a wickedness in her grin.

She turned away to begin gathering things from the table, but he caught her by the wrist and reeled her back in, surprising her with a deep, hard, frenzied kiss that left her feeling a little flushed and out of breath. Before releasing her, he bumped himself firmly against her, as if dotting an exclamation point that he'd just decided to add to the end of his kiss, to punctuate how exhilarated and masculine she made him feel.

"Don't be long. There's this magic trick I wanna perform for you, but it requires the aid of a lovely assistant," he zinged her back, whispering low and sinisterly into her ear.

Not that old snake-charmer line, Michelle thought to herself, watching the rookie confidentally smirk, as though he were already midway through his self-awarded victory lap. She confidently flipped through the Rolodex in her head for a one-up line with just enough juice to shut him down.

"I'll be happy to give you a hand," she buried him, with a sultriness in her voice and without missing a beat.

She wondered if he would even catch the double-entendre, rookie that he was. It had almost made her own cheeks pinken when she heard herself say it. But this was one-liner warfare, after all, and a girl had to do what a girl had to do to defend her undefeated title.

He caught it. It caused his jaw to drop open a little. After-Work-Michelle was a little friskier and naughtier than the Work-Michelle he knew. He had noticed that when she took him by surprise a couple of times the night before. He loved it, and couldn't get enough of it, but also appreciated that it would take some time before he had honed himself, like a Jedi, to anticipate it, to await it, to instinctually feel it coming, and to be better braced to protect himself from the punch to the groin it landed.

Okay, she had won that round, he conceded to her with his eyes. But also with a smirk, warning her that he'd return someday to pulverize her.

Good luck, rookie, she thought to herself, recalling the countless victories she's enjoyed over the years, popping off one-liners with her older brother, Danny, who had previously held the title until Michelle came along and learned how to talk.

Tony tried to kiss her again, but she playfully motioned him away with a head nod in the direction of the hallway, eager to get the dishes cleared and a call placed to her housekeeper.

"Hit the showers, Almeida," she dismissed him, as an exasperated high school coach would a hopeless newcomer to the team.

She briefly wondered how Fluff-Fluff and Tony would ultimately take to each other, or whether they even would. Between Fluff-Fluff's unceasing demands for her undivided attention, and the lockdown Tony had taken upon himself to place her under, Michelle decided not to hold out too much hope of an instant brotherhood formulating between them.

As she watched Tony obligingly stroll away, she wondered what devilishly attractive t-shirt he would select for her tomorrow.

"Hey, you — rookie," she called out to him, quickly reaching under her t-shirt and shimmying out of her panties. As he turned to her, she tossed them and his hand reflexively snapped them out of the air, as a lizard's tongue would do to a fly.

"Stick those in a sink with some warm soapy water, please, dear?" she smiled sweetly, sucker-punching him one final time, just in case he had any doubt as to whom the champ was, and always would be, around these parts. "If I'd known the wait at the restaurant was going to be this long, I would've packed a bag."

Tony wanted to speak, but couldn't. Nor could he breathe without reminding himself first. Nor could he barely walk at this point. And not because of his recent ankle injury, either.

He knew in his heart that he had already fallen in love with Work-Michelle, but it stunned him to find that it seemed to be happening all over again with After-Work-Michelle: this extraordinarily sensual, mischievously sexual creature whom he had only just met for the first time last night. Both women's silky ringlets were identical, but one was a kitten and the other was a lioness; one shyly blushed as the other shamelessly seduced; one was soft, girlish and gigglish, the other fiery, confident, and fearlessly forward. And both were ganging up on him to unhand him of his heart for good.

He shook his head in defeat as he hobbled down the hallway, unconsciously dabbing the sweat from his brow with the balled-up panties in his hand. The oddest image suddenly flashed in his head: He saw himself opening the tray of the DVD player and placing Michelle's movie in first. He didn't know quite what to make of it, or why he'd even had such a thought. It was pretty bizarre, and didn't even any make sense. So he swiftly pushed it out and focused on more important matters. Like, how pretty Michelle's reddish curls would probably look against his white long-sleeved Cubs t-shirt. The new one in the top right-hand drawer. The one he hadn't even had a chance to wear himself, yet.


	3. The Shower

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 3: The Shower_

"No."

"Michelle..."

"No."

"Sweetheart... C'mon."

"No. I'm not doing it."

"Why not? …. Honey, wait…. It'll be fun!"

"What the heck is wrong with you men, anyhow? Are you all, like... out of your minds, or something?"

"Where are you going?... Sweetheart... You've still got shampoo in your hair! … Wait — Michelle, wait up…"

"There's something downright — stop laughing, mister —there's something downright disturbing about your species. Are you aware of that? I mean, how do you guys even come up with this stuff? You're like a bunch of mental patients, every last one of you."

"Aw, c'mon. Don't tell me you've never done it before."

"Look. I'm happy to help you with a new puppy, or an off-road vehicle, or your favorite old sweater. But beyond that? You're on your own. Sorry."

"Okay, look, look. I'll start, okay? … I'll go first… All right?"

"You appear to have successfully missed my entire point. I'm not doing this. I don't even understand why in the world you and your lunatic brethren find it necessary."

"Geeziz, honey, think about it. It has to be changed. You can't just recycle the old one."

"Why not?"

"Well, because ... _you_ know..."

Michelle stopped in her tracks so abruptly and without a moment's warning that Tony literally crashed into her, nearly knocking her over.

"No. I don't. I really don't know. Why can't you just use the same ridiculous one you already have?"

"Because — c'mon, you know why. It wouldn't be right. There would be something — I don't know, immoral about that."

"What the… Okay, you know what? I want to hear this. You tell me how in the world morality has anything to do with it. Explain it to me."

"It's — geeziz, I have to explain this? You can't just reuse the old one, Michelle. First of all, it doesn't only belong to the guy. Half of it is the woman's, since both of them created it. So you can't just go transferring it over from one woman to another. It would defeat the entire purpose of even having one in the first place… If ya did that, there wouldn't be anything special about it anymore."

Michelle stared at him. He was dead serious. She turned and walked away.

"Sweetheart, just — just go back to the shower, will ya? Let me get the rest of the shampoo out, for cryssake.… C'mere... Honey, where are you going? You're dripping all over the place..."

Michelle stormed past him, slapping the comb she had fetched from her purse into the palm of his hand. Muttering something indistinguishable under her breath, she headed back to the shower with Tony in pursuit.

"Look, I'll just get us started, okay? This'll be fun, I promise. How 'bout something like … okay … 'Cobra'? Huh? What do ya think of 'The Cobra'?"

"Don't talk to me. I'm getting psychiatric counseling for you first thing Monday morning... And you stop that laughing or I'm calling a cab."

"Okay, okay, look. Just hang on a second. I have another one..."

"Wait. No. I have one. It's my turn, right? Tell me what you think of this one, okay? 'Penis,' ... as in, 'Oh, look, it's your penis.' Does that work for you?"

"Well ... no, honey, that's too ... clinical. It's gotta be something like, y'know, 'The Sperminator' — get it? Okay, now it's your turn again... Oooowww! Michelle!"

"You're an idiot, Almeida, y'know that?"

"Just hold still…. Geezus, hold still, will ya? You're gonna slip and crack your head open, for cryssake…. How's that? Did I get it all? … Check it."

"Yeah, that's good."

"So now what?"

"The conditioner. Not a lot, though. Just enough to get all the strands. You don't have to saturate everything, like you do with shampoo."

"Got it."

"Just stick a little in your hand and sort of work it through."

"Got it. What's it supposed to do."

"Untangle the knots, so you can get a comb through it."

"Ah. So I was right. You do have to comb your hair."

"Right after you rinse the conditioner out, you comb it while it's still wet. Because if you let it get even a little dry, you can just forget it. Everything knots up and it's a nightmare, and you just have to start all over again, at that point."

"So all these women who've been turning guys down for a date all these centuries, claiming they had to stay home that night and wash their hair, weren't lying after all."

"Not the ones with thick hair, at least."

Tony spent a couple of minutes diligently distributing the thin coat of conditioner evenly throughout Michelle's hair as best he could, considering how remarkably thick it really was, and how unbelievably knotted it had become just from washing it. The conditioner stuff smelled nice, he thought. Like coconuts. He had never used it before — he didn't even realize he had it. And even if he had, he probably wouldn't have known what to do with it. Mrs. Sanchez must've gotten it for him at some point when she was shopping for other things, like shaving cream and toothpaste. He sometimes didn't know what he would ever do without that woman. She took care of everything for him: groceries, laundry, dry cleaning … She would even take it upon herself to replace shirts and sheets and whatever else she felt had seen better days.

"So why can't ya just comb it while the conditioner stuff is still in? Wouldn't it be easier to get the knots out that way… while your hair's all slick? Theoretically, the comb should just slide right through the knots, correct?"

"Yeah. You could do that. That would work, too."

"Doesn't that make more sense?"

"Yes, that's not a bad idea. I've never thought of that, actually."

Michelle passed the comb over her shoulder while Tony searched the back of her hair for the thickest, most matted section he could find, to put his theory to the torture test. Just as he had suspected, the teeth of the comb slid smoothly through the silky conditioner, meeting relatively little resistance along the way. The man was a genius. He should've opened a chain of salons. The job would've been safer, and he'd be a millionaire by now.

"Do you like 'The Sperminator'? You didn't say."

She ignored him. He continued.

"Ya wanna order in Thai food tonight? This new place opened a couple of blocks away. They stuck a take-out menu under the door. It looks pretty good."

"Yes. Definitely. I love Thai food. I never get to have it, either. You're lucky you have so many places around here. My neighborhood's so industrial."

"I noticed that. It didn't strike me as too terribly safe, either."

"Gee, I can't believe that I'm hardly even feeling any snags. This is great."

"Yeah, it's sliding right through... See that? Men aren't thoroughly useless. We come up with a decent idea every now and again. Turn around. Let's see… Geeziz, you look so different with straight hair."

He spent another couple of seconds combing the sides of her hair behind her ears, grinning at the way they stuck out from the volume and weight of the hair pushing them forward.

"How long?"

"Two, three minutes. Then you just rinse it out…. Ummm...?"

"What."

"What was that old one again? The 'mighty' one."

"You forgot it already? Good. I violated the privacy code by telling you in the first place."

"Mighty Joe—Young? Mighty Joe Slung? It was Mighty Joe-something. I remember that much, because I remember thinking that your name wasn't even 'Joe.'"

"That kind of thing doesn't matter. You can take a lot of creative license with these things."

"Did you come up with that one?"

"None of your business."

"I didn't think you did. You're a little more creative than that. You would've at least worked your own name into it… She was blonde, I'll assume?"

"I already told ya we're not going there, so you might as well give it up."

"Are you sure she even caught your name? What was she screaming out in the heat of the moment? Was it 'Tony' or 'Joe'? Do you happen to recall offhand?"

"Enough."

"Okay, then tell me this. But you have to listen carefully to the question first before you answer, because there are certain things I definitely do not want to know, okay? So listen to the entire question first, and make sure you understand what I'm asking for, and then give me only the answers to the specific questions I ask, and nothing else. Got it?"

"God help me. Go ahead."

Tony frowned and reached up to remove the detachable showerhead from its perch, which had suddenly lost at least half its water pressure. He began tinkering with it.

"Okay, first, I'm assuming that basically every man on the planet has a nickname for his 'organ.' Would that be a safe assumption?"

"Probably."

"Okay, then that would mean that basically every guy at the office has a nickname. A 'personal moniker,' if you will. So here's the question. Do you guys —You have to listen carefully to this part. It's important."

"I'm listening, baby. Just go on."

"Okay. So, do you guys all know each other's monikers? Now, stop for a second! Don't say anything yet! This is the part you have to understand..."

"I'm not saying a word. I think I already know where you're going with this, and I wouldn't tell you anyway, so you're safe to proceed."

"Good, because here's the only part I want to know, okay? I just want to know if it's a guy-thing to swap information like that…"

"To tell each other their 'personal moniker,' y'mean?"

"Yes. But I do not want any names or corresponding nicknames, because I would never be able to look a CTU guy in the eye again if I knew what his moniker was. Understand?"

"Got it."

"And you can't even tell me what any of the actual nicknames are, either. Remember that, dear. Because if you mentioned a nickname, like 'Big Daddy,' or something, I'll always wonder which guy in the office it belongs to, and it will eventually drive me insane."

"I understand. The only thing you want to know is if it's common practice and a matter of course for all guys to tell all other guys what their 'personal nickname' is."

"Correct."

"Okay… Then I would say no. Some guys tell other guys, but no, it's not a routine thing."

"So, not every guy in the office knows every other guy's nickname, you're saying."

"That's correct."

"Do some?"

"I don't know… Maybe… Sometimes a guy might bring it up in the context of a joke, over a beer. Or within the context of a direct quote from their wife or girlfriend, or something like that. So maybe some guys know other guy's names. I couldn't give you percentages."

"Do you know any of the other guys' names?"

"I would never tell you that, one way or the other, in a thousand years, because you would torture me for the rest of my life to name names."

"Okay, fine. Then let me ask you this. Have you ever told another guy what your nickname was?"

"A guy at the office? Or over the course of my entire life?"

"Your entire life."

"Yes."

"How about at the office?"

"I'm not telling you, for the same reasons previously stated."

"Fine. That part wasn't pertinent anyway."

"Is that it, then? Has your curiosity been satisfied?"

"Yes, thank you, honey. You were very helpful."

"You don't need to know what the inside of the Men's Room looks like, or anything? I can move on with the rest my life now?"

"Yes. I was just wondering how far you guys took this thing."

"Ya think we're out there introducing ourselves to each other, like, 'Tony the Sperminator Almeida. Nice to meet ya'…"

"It never hurts to check these things."

"So where are we with 'The Sperminator,' anyway? Is that a go, or what? It sounds kinda virile, don't ya think?"

"Doesn't matter, because I'm never gonna use it anyway."

"You'll use it."

"I can guarantee you that I won't."

"You'll come to love it. It'll grow on ya."

"That was lame, dear."

"Yeah, well ... we'll see. I give you a month — a month and a half, on the outside, before you're begging for him by name."

"'Him'?"

"He's hardly a 'her,' baby."

Michelle just stared and shook her head.

"Is there anything you would like to know about women, while we're on the subject, by the way? Like, why we never like to think too long about the disproportionate number of male world leaders, who hold the fate of the planet in their hands?

"Why is that."

"Because it's too frightening. All we can think about is that fateful day when the world finally comes to a catastrophic end, all because Prime Minister Fill-in-the-Blank had been too busy nicknaming his penis to avert the crisis while the averting was still good."

"You chicks just like to worry. We haven't exactly blown up the planet yet, have we."

Michelle rolled her eyes this time and leaned herself back against the wall, wrapping her arms around herself to keep from shivering. The cascading stream of warm shower water was on temporary hold while Tony tried to figure out the water pressure problem. She thought about asking him to just spray her with it, to warm her up, but he seemed so engrossed with glancing up and down between the showerhead and the ceiling that she didn't want to break his concentration.

"Goddamned Steve and Elaina, I swear. It's like they have a device rigged, or something, that automatically turns their shower on whenever this one's running, for cryssake… Okay, well … this is as good as I'm gonna get it. C'mere, baby... No, the other way… Let me know if it's too hot."

"Nah, it's perfect."

Michelle locked her fingers around his waist to steady herself while she arched herself back and squeezed her eyes shut. The hot streaming water, combined with the sensation of his hand stroking all around and through her hair, felt fantastic.

"Ya getting tired?" he asked.

"Yeah, all of a sudden I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. You?"

"We'll be in bed in a second. Don't worry."

"You still have to shave. I get to watch, remember?"

"You didn't get enough to watch before?"

She peeked through her lids at the same shy smile she had on her own face. She squeezed her eyes shut again, feeling a faint blush warming her cheeks.

"You're an animal, Almeida."

"That one wasn't my idea, baby," she heard him gently remind her with a soft chuckle.

She felt her ears getting warm now, too, and decided to leave well-enough alone.

"Have we settled on 'The Sperminator'? Do ya think you can live with that?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess. If I have to."

"I think it's kinda catchy, actually. Don't you?"

"Yes, honey. It's very inventive."

"You're not just saying that…"

"No, I mean it. I think it's very creative. It's got the play on words — Terminator, Sperminator — which is very clever. And it's got that twofold virility thing going on, between the Schwarzenegger imagery and the 'sperm' reference."

"Ya can't get much more virile than that, can ya?"

"Nah, that one would be pretty hard to top, I would think."

She peeked for a moment to watch him beam with pride and ingeniousness, thoroughly convinced that his was, by far, the best 'personal moniker' on the planet, certain to be envied by each and every one of his equally retarded male brethren, come Monday. She wasn't buying for a moment that they didn't swap names. She knew he was harboring a good three or four monikers, at the very least:

Definitely that guy Whatzhizname's — the one he was always laughing with, and talking to about baseball.

Maybe Jack, although she wasn't sure if they were close enough. They definitely cared for each other, but still seemed to be going through that animal kingdom ritual, like two bucks squaring off for more power, territory, and buckettes.

Mason was gone now, like so many others, but Tony had probably known his handle. Not that he would ever have wanted to, but Mason was likely one of those guys who'd let it be known in conversation, as Tony had mentioned earlier.

Chappelle. No way.

Hammond? … Eeeeeeewwwww … Eeeeewwww … Ick… Yuck…

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, honey. I'm just thinking how good your hand feels all over my head like that."

"Good," he replied in a warm, quiet voice.

An old adage that her grandmother Dessler used to always say about her grandfather Dessler suddenly sprung to mind. Michelle was a little hazy on the exact words, and struggled to remember them as best she could, because the sentiment just seemed to fit the moment so perfectly:

"Men. You can't live with them, and you can't shoot them."

Or something along those lines.


	4. His Discovery

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 4: His Discovery_

Michelle rummaged through her purse, moving its contents back and forth and side to side. She could've sworn she had a small tester bottle of body lotion in there, along with every other beauty product sample that had ever been foisted upon her in the cosmetic or fragrance department of a store. She clearly remembered that the bottle was small and cylindrical and pink and ... darn.

She moved from the living room area over to the table where they'd had breakfast earlier and turned the purse upside down. Pausing to tighten the thick white towel a little more snuggly around her body, she dove in and began sifting through the wide array of contents. Directly on top of the heap were the condoms she had buried in her purse the night before. As she rolled her eyes in a full circle, she caught a peripheral flash of color down on the carpet, to her left. Stooping in, she spied a yellow M&M situated a few inches away from Tony's chair and picked it up.

Michelle hadn't seen any hard evidence of the M&M's, like a bag or a container on the countertops when she had pulled the kitchen together. Nor had she witnessed Tony actually consuming any. But she remembered detecting the distinct aroma of chocolate when he'd kissed her before she had sent him off to the shower. Staring down now at the yellow M&M in her palm, she knew this could only mean one thing: that he must have an economy-sized bag — or four — safely hidden away somewhere, as all men and canines tended to do with their favorite treats out of some kind of natural, animalistic survival instinct.

She winced at the thought of the excruciatingly tedious, tiresome, hideous male ritual she knew he would undoubtedly put her through later, most likely just as they were gearing up to watch The Guns of Navarone this evening. She knew precisely how the ritual would play out. Every woman on the planet was only too painfully familiar with the ritual. It would require the ultimate in timing, cunning, and stealth on his part, the ultimate in patience on hers.

Tony would begin by surreptitiously glancing at her a number of times until he was certain that her mind was preoccupied with the lame assignment he will have given her — changing the batteries in the remote control, no doubt, as that seemed to be the ruse preferred by most men. Only then would he swiftly make his move to retrieve the bag as Michellepretended not to notice the precise location of his secret stash.

After situating himself comfortably on the couch and reclaiming custody of the remote, Tony would then be obligated to taunt her with the M&M's, whether he was even in the mood to or not. Taunting was a mandatory part of the ritual, which no man would dare consider dispensing with for fear of angering the testosterone gods. So after hoarding them for the first couple of minutes, he would hold the bag out to her, as though intending to generously offer her some, only to immediately snatch them back and laugh heartily at how pathetically easy it was to dupe so gullible a creature as she. Next, he would feign a sincere apology and begrudgingly hold the bag out to her again, only to promptly snatch it away a second time — born sucker that she unfortunately was, on top of it all.

In the next round, Tony would bargain like a seasoned teamster negotiator to exchange x-amount of M&M's for a specified sexual favor, to which Michelle would respond with "the look" that assured him hell would be freezing over first. The ensuing 30-to-45-second sulking period would then be followed by yet another round of various extortion and bribery attempts on his part, but for a more reasonable sexual favor this time; likely one that was even legal in the United States.

Eventually, after she had generously allowed him enough time to have his fun, Michelle would swiftly bring it all to an end by sweetly asking for just a few — but only the colors he had never really ever been particularly fond of — and end her request on the word "dear." And he would overflow her hands with M&M's before realizing what he had done. But he wouldn't kick himself afterwards for having given up so many. Tony had already given up his heart to her, Michelle knew, though she wasn't quite sure if he knew it himself. Granted, he hadn't yet verbalized those three deal-sealing I-love-you words, but he had said them to her a hundred times over in the other language that humans use; the one that doesn't require any words.

In fact, the only concern Michelle had at this point was that Tony might become spooked by how rapidly their feelings and relationship had advanced over such a short period of time. He was probably, and deservedly, a little more gun-shy and untrusting than the average man, she figured, after the extraordinary and devastating way in which his last significant relationship had come to a mind-blowing halt. So it was conceivable that, come Monday, he might suddenly and dramatically start backing away once his heart and head had settled into the routine of everyday life again. She didn't think it was very likely, but it was the one outstanding disaster scenario that she couldn't completely discount at this point in time.

"Michelle! Quit snooping and come back in here!" she heard him call out from the bathroom. "I'm only shaving for you, y'know!"

"I'm not snooping! I'm looking for something in my purse!" she called back to him.

"Uh-huh," he responded, figuring she was either on her hands and knees rifling through his CD's by now, or busily hacking into his email.

As Michelle hurriedly sifted through the contents strewn across the table, she thought briefly about the other option available to her this evening: blindsiding him with a courteous "No, thanks" the first time he held out the M&M's bag to her. But that would be cruel and might ruin his entire evening, she quickly reconsidered. Besides, she'd already sucker-punched the poor rookie enough for one day. Maybe, just for him, she would simply go along with the ridiculous ritual like the good little gullible dupe she was quite naturally born to be.

"You look pretty in white," Tony smiled, glancing at her reflection in the mirror as she breezed past him from behind and perched herself on the rim of the tub.

"You, too," she smiled up at him sweetly. She was referring to the matching white towel wrapped around his waist, but with her eyes focused instead on all the various muscles moving around in his arms and back as he slathered the color-coordinated white shaving cream over his coarsely bearded face and neck.

He ran the razor under the hot water streaming into the sink, watching out from the corner of his eye as she gracefully crossed her slender legs and squeezed a dollop of lotion into her palm.

"Did you have enough time to get through all my baby pictures, or just most of them," he casually asked, reaching to adjust the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet to get a better view of her legs.

"No one's interested in pictures of an infant with a five-o'clock shadow, dear," Michelle assured him.

"Ah, so you _were_ snooping," he grinned, noticing that her eyelids looked as though they were about five minutes away from closing up shop.

"Is that a pain to have to do every single morning," she asked as she watched his razor glide smoothly through the thick shaving cream on his cheek.

"No more so than that, I would think," he replied, referring to the steadfast job she was doing of working the lotion deep into the skin of her silky leg. "Besides," he added, "I don't mind. It's a good time to get some thinking done."

"About?"

"You know... the big stuff," he elusively replied.

"Such as?" she asked with a confident smile, convinced that she was probably sitting pretty high up on his list of "the big stuff" right about now.

He grinned into the mirror again, deliberately holding her in suspense as he blazed another smooth trail through the shaving cream.

"What's so funny," she had to know. "Tell me."

But he remained silent for a few moments longer, allowing her curiosity to build as he took his time slowly rinsing the head of his razor under the running water. Her snoopiness, which he had noticed pretty much from her first day on the job, was something that had always charmed and amused him.

"Tell me, honey!" Michelle insisted, tortured by the wait. But he continued to let her hang, instead, watching her reflection in the mirror as her curiosity intensified with each passing nanosecond he didn't respond. Something inside her had an insatiable need to know what was going on around her at all times. It was probably a big part of what made her so good at her job, Tony had always thought.

But he didn't want to think about their jobs right now. Thoughts of Monday gave him a queasy, uneasy feeling inside. Monday morning would lead to Monday night, which represented a moment of truth for him. Although they hadn't even slept a single night together as yet, he was already fretting over the possibility of finding himself alone in bed on Monday night. He feared that she might think things were moving too rapidly and want to put the brakes on a bit; that she may ultimately decide to spend the evening out with a bunch of girlfriends, instead of at home with him. Or worse, that she might not even be experiencing the same emotions, with the same fierce intensity, that he was. From the moment he had first kissed her — or she had kissed him — he knew that if he ever got to make love to her, there would be no turning back for him. He also knew he'd be devastated if, for whatever reason, things didn't work out between them.

"Home." He liked the sound of that word. His apartment had never felt like a home before; not with Nina or anyone else he'd ever spent significant time with there. But it felt like a home with Michelle, he thought, glancing at her reflection again as she smoothed the lotion over her ankle. It felt like she belonged there.

She looked up and caught him watching her through the mirror, noticing that same warm gaze she had seen in his eyes from across the breakfast table.

"Tell me," she nudged him again.

"I don't have to tell you everything," he smiled coyly, enjoying the feature film that played out on her face whenever she would fail to procure an answer from him.

"You're thinking about me," she confidently stated as though it were a fait accompli, hoping to bait him into either confirming or denying, which would then give her a better handle on what was flowing through his mind.

"I already told you that," he wholeheartedly agreed, much to her chagrin. "I told you I was thinking about how pretty you looked in white."

"Okay, fine," she sighed, disappointed. "Don't tell me... I didn't really want to know anyway. I was just being polite... How a person looks in white doesn't even qualify as important, so I know you're not telling me the truth anyway."

Tony chuckled to himself, amused not only by her frustration at not being able to read minds, but by the irony of her statement: Michelle, of all people, complaining about not receiving a square answer to a clearly articulated question was as rich as it possibly got.

"Somebody's getting cranky," he said in soft, sing-songy voice, leaning in a little closer to the mirror before attempting to take the tighter turns just under his nostrils. He used to be able to see that area crystal-clearly and thought for a moment about how dangerously close he suddenly was to turning forty, one of these years in the not- so-distant future. He remembered how he'd had to squint to see the last line on the eye chart during his annual physical a few months back, and wondered what it would be like in the field having to wear glasses — or not having glasses if, in fact, he actually needed them to help ensure his safety out there.

Michelle snapped the lid shut on the lotion bottle and decided to try a new tactic, this time gliding up from behind and leaning herself against him, white towel to white towel. She softly slid her arms around his waist, feeling him shudder from the ticklish sensation when she brushed her lips against his bare back. After a few more tender kisses, she rested her cheek against him. The hollow scraping of his razor resonating though his body tempted her to close her eyes and listen. But she didn't dare. The soothing, rhythmic sound would put her to sleep on her feet in matter of seconds.

"C'mon," she coaxed him sweetly, moving the palms of her hands in soft circles around his stomach and chest. "Why can't you just tell me?"

"I did, baby," he said softly, flinching again from the ticklish sensation, this time from her damp curls softly shifting against his skin every time a muscle would move in his back.

Michelle sighed. She was getting nowhere.

"Fine, fine. Don't tell me then," she sulked, unhooking her arms from around him and moving slowly, with high drama, down to the other end of the counter.

She submerged her hand in the soapy water he had filled the sink with, trying to assume a despondent expression in the hopes of inspiring guilt in him. But all she could elicit was a warm smile, which only drove her crazier, so she finally decided to give up entirely. She felt around the inside of the sink for the panties soaking beneath the dissipated bubbles. Coming up empty, she canvassed the countertop, then glanced down at the floor, then back around the countertop again. Tony kept a peripheral eye on her, struggling to maintain a straight face while he waited for her to eventually turn toward him with a suspicious frown. She didn't disappoint.

"Where are my panties?" she asked.

"I don't know. Look around," he replied nonchalantly, rinsing the foam from the razor's head. "Did ya check the sink?"

"Yeah, I checked the sink. They're not in there."

"Well... I wouldn't worry. They'll turn up, I'm sure."

"Almeida."

"What."

"Don't 'what' me. I want those panties."

"People want a lot of things in life, sweetheart. I want a Maserati, but you don't see me wheeling one around the bathroom, now, do ya."

"They're the only pair I have here," she sternly reminded him. "I didn't exactly pack a steamer trunk to go out last night."

"Well ... maybe you'll pack a little more carefully next time," he goaded her.

"I'm never seeing those panties again, am I? They were part of a matching set, you know."

"You'll see them. I sent them out to be framed."

Michelle drew in a deep breath, her weariness clearly beginning to get the better of her sense of humor.

"How would you feel if some woman stole your one and only pair of boxers, huh?"

"Like a million bucks," he replied matter-of-factly, pausing from skimming the razor up his neck to pat the countertop with his fingertips a few times, motioning her to sit beside him. "C'mere... Talk to me for a second."

"About what," she said with her arms crossed and a detectable challenge in her voice.

"I want to explain to you how badly you lose your edge when you're tired," he answered, softly and casually.

"What are you talking about?" she replied a bit defensively, though more curious to know what example, if any, he was specifically referring to. "What makes you say I lose my edge? When did I ever lose it? I never lose my edge. Not in any situation, under any amount of pressure, have you ever seen me lose my edge."

Tony decided not to bring up her crying jag in the hallway last week, partly because it wasn't hard to see how tired and cranky she was becoming, and partly because it had been one of the most thrilling moments of his life. Every time he recalled the way she had thrown caution to the wind and bravely pushed her lips up hard and passionately against his, he would immediately find himself in a compromised state, having to frantically shift his mind onto other thoughts, like baseball, instead.

"Wanna see me prove it to you?" he said, cupping his hands under the faucet and leaning in to splash the remains of the shaving cream from his face. "Sit up here. I'll show you."

He had her attention. She didn't rush over, however, preferring to keep him hanging, as he had done her. She took her time sauntering over, shimmying up onto the counter, and assuming a defensive posture, with arms and legs crossed, all the while assuring herself of how thoroughly open she was to fairly and objectively reviewing and evaluating any evidence he may wish to present.

"You know they have to be in the apartment somewhere, right?" he warmly reminded her so as not to crush her too badly. He paused from rinsing his face long enough to open the medicine cabinet and pull out a box of band-aids. Placing it in her hand, he repositioned the mirrored door and stooped back in to splash some water around his neck.

"Oh, my God..." she gasped as the horrible reality suddenly set in.

"You just missed your golden opportunity to—"

"Oh, my God..."

"...to snoop through every drawer and closet of every room in the apartment looking for them," he broke it to her as gently as he could. "Legitimately, too" he was forced to add upon realizing that he simply didn't possess the self-discipline to pass up the opportunity to rub it in.

"Oh, my God," she repeated, realizing the full gravity of her error. She was furious that she'd actually allowed herself to commit such a rookie blunder.

"I may have to keep my eye on you a little more closely next time we pull an all-nighter," he needled her a little more, then decided he should probably stop teasing her altogether. From the sickly expression on her face, he was afraid she might go for the silver box and gulp down an anti-nausea pill.

He reached into the medicine cabinet again and produced a bottle of aftershave lotion with only a scant amount of liquid remaining at the bottom. It had been fun, but he didn't have the heart to leave her lingering in that state.

"Wanna get me another bottle of this?" he asked rhetorically. "Bathroom down the hall, second door on the right. Check the shelves behind the louver door. I think that's where..."

She was gone.

Tony knew Mrs. Sanchez didn't keep the aftershave down the hall, but it was clear that Michelle needed a fix. He would give her a couple of minutes to rummage around the shelves. If nothing else, it would brighten her mood. He was looking forward to kissing her to sleep a few minutes from now; not receiving a brooding lecture, instead, about how mean, heartless, and typically male he was.

"Do you see it?" he called out to her, moving down to the medicine cabinet at the other end of the counter where he knew he would find a full bottle. He paused first to release some of the cold water from the sink and replace it with hot water from the tap, adding another shot of the hand soap he'd poured in earlier. Pulling the panties the rest of the way out of the bandaid box, he gave them a quick kiss before plunging them beneath the bubbly water, smiling at the memory of how incredibly sexy Michelle had looked in them. He felt a familiar clutch in his gut and quickly chased the image away, wondering how he was going to manage to keep such thoughts out of his head once he was back at work again.

Down the hall Michelle had gotten her second wind and was having a veritable field day opening bottles and smelling them with the grace and speed of a gazelle. She busily identifyed which scents matched the ones she smelled on his skin and clothing every day, and scanned for old-girlfriend products, which always seemed to linger on men's shelves twice as long as the relationship had even lasted. She was mildly disappointed that she didn't turn up single item. Not even an old bottle of nail polish remover, or a bobby pin, or even a stray lipstick cap. Little did she know how diligently Mrs. Sanchez had slaved to remove every last shred of evidence that Nina Myers had ever existed. Even if Tony hadn't ordered her to do so, she would've taken the task upon herself. Mrs. Sanchez, with four sons of her own, had a maternal instinct that yearned to strangle Nina with her bare hands for the shape she had left Tony in.

"C'mon, baby, I need it," Michelle heard him call out to her again.

She had successfully scoured the entire medicine cabinet over the sink; the two drawers of the basin cabinet; plus, the relatively empty cabinet underneath. She now worked hastily, with experience and skill, to pick her way through the remaining three-deep rows of products on the last unchecked shelf behind the louver door.

"I don't see it, dear!" she called back, generously offering to check another room for him, but with no response. Perhaps she shouldn't push her luck, she thought, and hurried back up the hallway.

She stopped short immediately upon reentering the bathroom. Expecting him to be stowing his shaving implements away, she found him instead parked up against the tile wall directly across from the open door of the othe medicine cabinet. His arms were folded across his chest, with one bent just enough to allow his fingertips to claw away at the side of his freshly shaven cheek.

"Oh," she said.

He turned his head toward her, but didn't look anywhere near as stunned as Michelle had anticipated. His brow was fixed in more of a frown than a wild-eyed stare, and not an ounce of color had drained from his face.

"Yeah, I was going to get around to bringing that up soon," she added unemotionally and matter-of-factly, leaning herself against the sink counter directly across from him. It was at that moment she realized that she had jammed the tampons in right alongside the box of condoms. Shrewd planning, she admonished herself. Poor Tony. As if the box of condoms alone hadn't been enough to send him reeling.

He had a pretty good idea of how and why it had happened. Once he had gotten past the sight of the tampon box, and the significance of the condom box had finally registered, a theory had instantly formulated in his head. It wouldn't excuse his irresponsible behavior. Although forgoing the use of protection hadn't been a conscious decision on his part, it had still been his ultimate responsibility, which he'd utterly failed to meet.

"That was my fault, honey," he was quick to assure her, with a deep sigh.

"No," she was quick to disagree. "I was there, too. It wasn't like I couldn't have said something."

"C'mere," he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand while extending the other out to her. He suddenly felt exhausted. Propelling himself away from the wall even to cross over a couple of steps and bring her back to his leaning perch suddenly felt like too monumental a task. The best he could do was stoop forward and catch her hand as she approached, then sling his arms loosely around her until she had jockeyed herself into a comfortable position.

"Good?" he checked, once she settled in with her cheek resting against his shoulder.

"Yeah," she said with something that sounded like half a perplexed sigh and half a weary yawn.

"You okay?" he asked, cranking his head in toward hers just enough to kiss her damp curls. He felt her return a kiss to his shoulder.

"Yeah, I guess... A little confused, of course. I don't know what we were thinking... or not thinking..."

"Yeah... I have a theory about all that..."

"Share it. Please. I'm at a total loss."

"Later," he said, rubbing her neck with his fingertips as his mind performed a quick review of the events of the night before.

"No, tell me now, dear. I want to hear it."

"Nah... later. I have to think about it some more," he said, wanting to first rid her of the fears he knew had to have crossed her mind. "Listen... you don't have to worry about anything, y'know," he said in a quiet, comforting voice. "I'm routinely tested... I know you know that. But I also passed a physical, no problem, just a couple of months ago. And I haven't been with any..."

He stopped himself there. He suddenly didn't feel comfortable referencing the past. He resented even having to think about prior relationships. He wanted only Michelle in his words and thoughts. Nobody else belonged in that room with them, he thought, feeling an odd sense of protectiveness toward her, and them as a couple. Even mere thoughts of people from their pasts felt like some kind of gross intrusion; a violation, on some strange level.

Some other time he would tell her about how he had gone a good deal longer than the scant months following his exam. At first, after the daughter of Satan was arrested and Teri's body had been found, Tony had lost all interest in becoming involved, on any kind of level, with another woman.

But Nina was no longer the reason he had only barely dated over the course of many past months: Michelle was. Since the day she had begun working for him, no other woman seemed as pretty or interesting or smart. No other woman smelled as nice, or made modest, subdued office clothes look so provocative. No one had curls sprouting out of their head from every angle, no matter which direction he gazed at them from.

"Anyway, there's nothing for you to worry about," he concluded, gently kissing her ear to punctuate his assurance. "And I'll go get checked out again, if you want me to... Okay?"

Michelle returned the kiss to his shoulder and assured him that it wouldn't be necessary. But his unhesitating willingness to be completely open and honest with her, even about his months-long barren sex life, had oddly compelled her to want to come clean with him about something herself.

"As long as we're getting stuff out of the way here... I, umm... Well, I sort of already knew about... y'know, about your test result... about it being negative, and stuff," she admitted sheepishly into his shoulder, so low that he had to lean in a bit to discern her words. "I always know which day the clinic releases them—with McPherson doing, y'know, that stupid victory dance every time..."

"Uh-huh," Tony listened quietly, like a father confessor hearing a penitent parishioner's sins. Only unlike a pious man of the cloth, he was having trouble suppressing the chuckle that was fighting to free itself from his throat.

"And so... But I didn't hack into your file, or do anything, y'know, unforgivable like that," Michelle was quick to get down on the record.

"Or criminal," Tony was tempted to add, but opted to just quietly listen instead. Michelle was demonstrating great bravery, he thought, fessing up to such an embarrassing truth. He felt proud of her and didn't want to break her momentum, so he allowed himself only a small smile, which she couldn't even see, and gently stroked her hair, encouraging her to continue. He also reminded himself to remind himself of how truly brilliant he was to have kept his ingenious Plan-B protocol operational, noting the wholly unanticipated trickle-down effect it was now producing: Michelle was in the process of spilling her guts without even having been asked a question. He never thought he would live to see the day.

"I just sort of... umm... well, happened across the information, I guess you could say," she admitted with technical accuracy and immense difficulty, feeling herself blushing profusely as she recalled shamelessly picking through his wastepaper basket and stuffing the torn test result into the top of her pantyhose. She was glad that her face was turned away from him; especially after hearing his response.

"It took ya long enough, too," he said in a warm whisper, close to her ear. "I was beginning to think that maybe I'd buried it a little too deep in the trash can."

Her body stiffened in his arms, instantly sending the corners of his mouth arching into an uncontrollable, involuntarily grin. With one hand continuing to rub her back through the thick white towel, he eased his other hand down and lightly patted her butt a few times to both remind her of his earlier vow to return someday and pulverize her, and to generously comfort her in her moment of stunning defeat.

Michelle grimaced. She was hard-pressed to even accuse him of sneakiness under the circumstances. He had pulled off a velvety- smooth double whammy: first by setting her up to snoop; secondly, by orchestrating a foolproof way to preclude her from turning the tables on him and indignantly crying foul play. She'd never even seen it coming, either, which concerned her. Was she getting rusty and complacent, or was he a tad more keen and crafty an opponent than she'd originally sized him up to be.

She lifted her head and begrudgingly threw him the obligatory concession glance. But only long enough to award him the briefest of all possible moments in the sun before returning her cheek to its original place of rest, wincing from that proud, smug grin on his face. Perhaps he had just gotten lucky. She would keep her eye on him and reevaluate his standing in a week or so. Possibly even consult Danny on the matter.

"That said," she moved onward abruptly, with a distinct brooding in her voice that made him chuckle to himself even harder. "I can feel you laughing, y'know," she announced, this time clearly miffed, which nearly made him lose it entirely. Victory could just be so sweet sometimes.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said in as serious and controlled a manner as he could pull together right there on the spot, simultaneously sneaking a hand up to wipe a tear away from his eye. It took her a minute of brooding before she could get herself started again.

"I was thinking that this would be a good time to get my own, umm... activities on the record, as well... just so you can... y'know, know for certain... too ..."

It wasn't the most articulate thought Tony had ever heard flow from that razor-sharp mind of hers, but he knew what Michelle was struggling to get at. He'd never even bothered to devote a moment's thought to the possibility of having contracted something from her... of all people. The thought was preposterous to him, as she was probably the most conscientious person he'd ever met in his life. She would never allow herself to engage in unprotected sex in the first place, of this he was certain — despite her just having done so with him. And even if it ever were to happen, she would never allow a foreign entity, or even so much as the suspicion of one, to dwell within her system. She would have to run herself through the Mayo Clinic twice over before she could sleep at night again.

Besides, he didn't have to hire a clairvoyant to tell him that Michelle wasn't seeing anyone on a regular basis, or even doing much dating, if any. She either worked too late on the weekdays or would announce where she was off to that evening, just in the course of conversation. And on Monday mornings, when he would routinely ask how her weekend had gone, she would always inadvertently mention something that would lead him to conclude that a date had not been a part of it. What Tony couldn't figure out for the life of him, however, was why men weren't killing each other to get to her. The best he could reason was that the men she met were either too intimidated by her beauty; or feared they could never keep up with her intellectually; or wished they could date her, but were otherwise involved; or were just plain nuts.

"You don't have to reassure me of anything," he said gently, wishing to spare her any embarrassment, but also wishing to spare himself any more thoughts of Michelle in the arms of another man, which had suddenly leapt into his mind and was presently boring a hole in his gut.

"No, no..." she insisted, with her eyes still solidly glued to his shoulder. "It's only fair that you hear, directly from me, that you... y'know... don't have anything to be worried about either."

"I figured as much," he softly assured her.

That didn't come out quite right, he immediately realized, but opted to hold her a little snugger and kiss her hair again, in lieu of trying to reel his words back in. Past experience dictated that he'd only get himself even more tangled up if he embarked on a mission to repair his original statement. But he soon realized that his concerns were moot, since she didn't even seem to have caught his blunder.

"What are you thinking?" he asked. Her head lifted from his shoulder and turned to face him.

"Tell me about your theory," she said.

"Nah, later," he reiterated.

It had taken Tony by surprise how, of all people, a memory of his college buddy, Chris, had popped into his head when he'd opened that medicine cabinet door and realized what had occurred the night before. It was something Chris had said when they'd run into each other on a street somewhere downtown just a couple of years ago, which had suddenly made sense to Tony the instant he had zeroed in on that box of condoms sitting on the shelf. He really did want to think about it some more before sharing it with Michelle, since it had everything to do with how he felt about her, and where he knew their relationship was heading. Or at least where he hoped it was.

Besides, Michelle was clearly fading fast, Tony could tell, and he still had something else he wanted to talk to her about before they both eventually passed out for the next several hours. He glided his palms a final few times around her bare upper back and shoulders before taking her hand and easing away from the wall.

"C'mon," he said, turning in the direction of the door, then pausing to cross over to the sink to pull the lever on the drain.

"Where? To _bed_, you mean?... To _sleep?_" she asked incredulously, watching him use his free hand to firmly squeeze the soapy residue from the panties he'd retrieved from beneath the bubbles. "How am I gonna sleep knowing that you have a theory about this... this craziness we engaged in... which you won't even share with me?"

"I'm gonna, baby," he said in a soft, reassuring voice. "Just not right now."

She watched him twist the cold tap on and alternately open and close his fist beneath the stream of water, methodically rinsing the silky fabric, which looked so minuscule balled up in his hand. She could see he was collecting his thoughts and realized, much to her chagrin, that she was just going to have to learn to bite the bullet and corral her intense curiosity when he felt a matter required some more reflection. That was a good characteristic, she knew, but hated the thought of having to wait for God knew how long before hearing his take on this baffling incident.

"What are you thinking about?" Tony asked without even having to look at her, given how quiet she'd suddenly become.

On the heels of his refusal to share his theory, she was completely dumbstruck by his question.

"I am absolutely... _absolutely_ not telling you," she stubbornly declared, prompting him to grin in amusement as he leaned into the tub to hang the panties from one of the handles on the wall.

"Fine," he said, facetiously mimicking her. "I didn't really want to know anyway. I was just being polite."

"Oh, you wanted to know, all right, mister," she challenged him. "I could clearly hear it in your voice. You were dying to know what I was thinking. And isn't that just a shame, too, because until you're ready to tell... _Whoa!_"

In a flash he had turned and crouched forward, scooping her over his shoulder, fireman-style.

"No, I really didn't want to know," he said, casually sauntering toward the door as she kicked and screeched with laughter. "All I wanted to do was dib."

"Dib?... What?... You want to do what?" she howled, pounding his lower back with her fist, which only succeeded in making him laugh, given the lack of force her delicate hand was capable of delivering.

"Dib," he grinned, reaching up under her towel and pinching her butt, causing her to squeal with laughter and kick even harder. Moments later she felt herself free-falling backwards onto the mattress. But before she could move, he was on top of her, pinning her down with the weight of his body and gently wrapping his hands around her wrists to prohibit her from landing any more of her girly punches.

"Wow, that's some defensive training ya picked up at Quantico," he sarcastically chuckled, mesmerized by the glow illuminating her face as tears of laughter trickled from the corners of her eyes.

He slid his tongue into her mouth, but neither of them could stop laughing long enough to engage in anything close to a serious kiss. He tried grinding himself against her, as long as he had her in a pinned position, but had to abandon that, as well. Her laughter was so contagious that all he could basically do was giggle like a schoolgirl against her lips until their laughter had finally tapered off enough to converse.

"I don't think I've ever been dibbed before," she commented, barely able to get the words out, with his lips schmushed up against her own. "Is that something sexual?"

"Dib," he repeated, removing his face from hers long enough to exaggerate the sound of every letter, as if trying to teach a new multi-syllabic word to a chimpanzee. "It's a longstanding Almeida tradition. You're gonna love it."

"I'm loving it already," she beamed, wiggled her hips beneath him in a feigned attempt to free herself, though with no intention or desire to do so. "Gee, with traditions like this, an Almeida family reunion must really be something to behold. Do they call the cops on you guys very often?"

He ignored her, releasing her wrists and sliding his arms under and around her. With one hand lifting her head from the mattress, he gently tilted her face, left and right, placing slow, soft kisses all around her creamy skin.

"We haven't even started to dib yet, y'know," he paused to inform her before tilting her head back to get at the incredibly baby-soft section directly beneath her chin.

She had no idea what "dib" stood for, but added it to her mental list of things she intended to pry out of him before she up and died of curiosity. In the meantime, she would just have to be content, she figured, with the sensation of his soft lips and warm breath bathing every inch of her face. Something inside instinctively assured her that she would somehow manage to muddle through.


	5. Her First Dib

LOVE AT FIRST DATE

_Chapter 5: Her First Dib_

The scent of coconut filling his nostrils made him pause and smile to himself. He had put that scent there. It had come from a bottle on one of his shelves. His own fingertips had lathered it in. A part of him was now a part of her and he loved the feeling it gave him. It felt as though she had moved another step closer to becoming all his.

His mouth continued slowly working her lips, taking in and suckling just a small portion each time before moving on to capture and savor the next sweet inch or so. She moaned beneath him, mesmerized by the affect his sensuous feasting was having on her, and how confused her mind had become, not knowing which sensation to focus on more: his soft, wet lips lightly nibbling away at her own, or the small, tight circular motion of his hips as he pressed and rolled himself firmly across the wildly ultra-sensitive region he'd zeroed in on and mercilessly taunted, steadily steering her closer toward the brink. She gasped hard each time he slowly circled back, skillfully applying a little more pressure, always at the right time and in just the right place, creating a breathtaking heat wave of friction between them.

With every slow, targeted tease he delivered to her warm, silky folds, he heard another whimper free itself from her throat, causing long, soft moans to escape from his own. He wallowed in the sensation of her delicate body shuddering beneath him, and in his own ability to draw such sounds of exhilaration from her. His breathing grew more and more stinted and labored each time he felt her hips lightly circle upward to meet his firm pushes downward, intensifying the shock waves that rushed throughout her every time he hit his mark.

She couldn't speak. She clung to him, reflexively responding to whatever his body told hers to do. His chest heaved deeper and heavier and his embrace compressed tighter around her, making her feel even more limp and lost in his arms. They seemed to envelop her everywhere, from the forearm her upper back rested against as his hand gripped the curls behind her head, to his other arm wrapped firmly beneath her, pulling her closer into himself, letting her feel each rhythmic rotation as he gradually increased his pressure and speed.

"Geeziz, baby," he gasped into her mouth, "I'm gonna lose it right here..."

His voice sounded pained as he lightly clamped his teeth against her bottom lip to punctuate his frustration before suddenly loosening his grip on her and rolling himself onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, taking in a few deep, cleansing breaths in an attempt to land himself back on the planet.

"We're supposed to be discussing something, aren't we?" he panted. "What the hell were we even talking about?"

"Our inexcusable sexual irresponsibility," Michelle panted in harmony, suddenly wondering where her towel had disappeared to as she struggled to regain her breath and composure. She pushed herself up on her elbow and peered around, mystified, until finally spying the towel up by the headboard where he'd apparently tossed it at one point or another, while neatly maintaining his own, though disheveled and just barely still clinging to his waist. How had he done that? she wondered. When had he done that, in fact?

She was beginning to develop her own theory about how they could have entirely forgotten to employ the basics of protection. She had just felt herself being transported back to that other world again, where he had taken her to the night before. It was a place that consisted of no one but the two of them, and nothing but warm, bright light and celestial surround-sound, saturating her ears with a mix of their moans and groans and whimpers and gasps. No troubles, no worries, no fears; no CTU's or STD's. Just the two of them consumed with each other's every word and whisper and sensual touch.

She blinked herself back to reality. Tony was propped up on his elbows, his head tilted back and still staring at the ceiling, gulping in mass quantities of oxygen.

"It's the way you kiss me," he decided aloud. "That's what's getting us into trouble."

"You started it," she reminded him with a breathless, seductive smile.

"That's strange... 'cause I seem to recall the trouble all starting with a curly redhead jumping me in a dark hallway at the office," he corrected her.

She watched him slowly roll himself over and crawl up toward the headboard. Depositing himself on his side, he spent a few seconds working himself into a comfortable position, his arm bent and his head resting against his hand.

"C'mere, nature girl," he chuckled, noticing her staring at her towel in disbelief. He patted his knuckles against the mattress to get her attention, then extended his hand to her, flailing a couple of fingers like a climber signaling a fellow mountaineer to ascend.

Michelle followed his path up to the headboard and laid herself down beside him, face-to-face, in the same head-against-hand position he had settled himself into. He reached for the sheet and drew it up over her, knowing there was no way in hell he was ever going to otherwise be able to concentrate on their upcoming discussion.

She reached out and brushed a strand of damp hair back from his forehead, dying to hear him finally explain to her what in the world a "dib" was. But before she could even ask, she was promptly treated to her first introduction to the fine art and unique tradition.

"Listen, honey, I can't re—"

He had begun to speak but immediately halted himself as though suddenly realizing he had forgotten a key step. He quickly leaned in and placed a hand on her cheek and a kiss on her face. It didn't appear to matter where the kiss landed, Michelle noticed, just as long as one had been planted before the discussion had formally begun. In fact, the way he had kissed her face, so mindlessly and mechanically, had instantly injected an image in her mind of the ceremonial gunshot that sprinters had to await before diving off the starting line: His abrupt halting and backtracking in mid-word seemed somehow equivalent to mistakenly jumping the gun and being compelled, by the rules, to return to the line and start over again.

He brought his hand up to rub his eyes for a moment, as if doing so might bring his thoughts into sharper focus.

"I can't really speak for you," he began over again. "I can barely even—"

"Whoa, whoa. Honey... 'Dib,'" Michelle couldn't help but interrupt.

"Oh, uhh... Yeah. Dib. Don't ask me which nut in the family started it, or how many generations ago, but... DIB — 'Discuss In Bed' or 'Discussion In Bed,' depending on whether ya ask the Hatfield or the McCoy side of the Almeida clan," he smiled bashfully. "They've been arguing over it for years… Anyhow, that's how I grew up. Any important matter, ya gotta discuss it in bed. No one in the family can even tell ya why. All anybody knows is that if your name's Almeida and you've got something on your mind, you've gotta be sprawled out on your parents' bed before anyone will even begin to listen to ya."

He glanced down, smiling self-consciously and scratching his cheek, imagining how perfectly bizarre the family ritual must sound to her, not to mention the family itself. But when he finally lifted his eyes back up, he found her beaming with delight.

Michelle, in fact, was completely enthralled by the notion. There was something incredibly warm and loving and terribly sweet, she thought, about the idea of parents lying in bed with their child, fully focused on whatever issues were important and meaningful to him. Having family discussions in so intimate an environment and in so nurturing a manner seemed like the ideal way to grow up. No wonder he was forever fearlessly and confidently butting heads with his superiors and Division's hierarchy. He had been quite literally raised to open his mouth and speak his mind, with consequences taking a backseat to whatever point he felt necessary to make.

She suddenly began to better appreciate, as well, the significance of the kick-off kiss at the beginning of the discussion. It was a declaration of love for one another, but it also seemed to serve as a contract, or an agreement of some sort; one that gave family members up-front permission and freedom to fearlessly share whatever was on their mind, knowing that no matter what they eventually went on to say, or how heated the discussion were to become, they would still come out of the conversation as unconditionally loved as they were going in.

"Wow, honey, that's so nice," she gushed with a huge smile, which only brought an even more bashful expression to his face, prompting him to turn his head and look away this time. "No, really, honey, I mean it. I love this system of holding discussions. I can just see you as a young boy, lying with your Mom and Dad in their bed, talking about, like ... how badly you wanted to join the football team..."

"Baseball."

"...or your first heartbreak over the little blonde-headed girl down the block, with the ponytails..."

"Braids."

"...or announcing to your parents that you had decided to join the Navy..."

"Marines... We don't talk about that particular dib, honey. I dropped out of college to join the Marines, so most of that particular discussion took place with my Dad's hands around my throat."

"Still... I can just picture you engaged in this dib thing with your parents, dear. The visual alone is just so heartwarming."

"Yeah, well... visualize me discussing my financial future with my Dad a couple of weeks ago. 'Insane' probably works a little better than 'heartwarming,'" he both smiled and groaned." You haven't witnessed the height of lunacy until you've seen an armed federal agent in his late thirties kissing a sixtysomething international corporate cut-throat in a business suit before launching into a multi-tiered retirement strategy. Trust me on this one, sweetheart."

But his groans and eye-rolls soon turned into rich, self-deprecating laughter as he went on to explain to Michelle how the sheer lunacy of the Almeida DIB tradition had never really hit him full-force until that last meeting with his Dad, when he'd found himself stretched out on his Mom's side of the bed with a glass of Scotch in his hand, sneezing from her perfume-saturated pillow cases as he listened to his Dad reading an article aloud to him from the Wall Street Journal, which the man carried around the house like the Holy Bible. Midway through the reading, Tony had become distracted after he had shifted into what he thought would be a more comfortable position, only to find that his holstered revolver, which he had forgotten to remove from his belt, was now digging painfully into his side, causing him to awkwardly twist and turn a number of times until he had gotten comfortable again. It was only then that the big-picture Almeida portrait of father and son had come into clear, sharp focus for him: two grown men lying side-by-side in a king-sized bed; the father reading aloud from the holy book of Wall Street, telling the son to stop rocking the bed and pay attention; the son, armed to the teeth and legally dangerous, sneezing into one of his mother's ruffly lace-trimmed linen handkerchiefs, which looked like it might've belonged to Marie Antoinette at one point in time. There was just something inherently wrong with that entire picture, it had suddenly occurred to him there and then.

As far back as his teenage years he could remember longing to discuss things at the dining room table, or in the family room, like normal kids did, and had even been tempted over the years to tell his parents that he was too old to be doing this "dib" thing anymore. But he never even bothered, already knowing what their reaction would be. His Dad was never going to give up kissing him; that much he knew. The man was an animal in the boardroom, but a mush when it came to his family. Tony never saw other guys' fathers kissing them, and would always die a thousand deaths whenever his friends were around and his Dad would appear. He was certain that he'd get the crap kicked out of him after school if his buddies ever saw his father planting a kiss on his cheek the same way he kissed his Mom upon arriving home from work every evening.

And his Mom — forget about his Mom. She would cut up her credit cards before ever agreeing to dispense with the "dib" tradition. To this day, she had yet to get over his leaving the nest.

As he watched Michelle's cheeks turning pink from laughter at his expense, Tony hoped, more than ever, that she'd accept his proposal when the time came, just so he could wander in and out of his parents room and make faces at her while she and his Mom lied side-by-side in his parents' bed, discussing the wedding details.

Michelle wiped a tear from her eye as she pulled herself back together.

"I may need a picture the next time you have a talk with your Dad," she regretted to inform him.

"Nah, we Almeidas are too smart to allow ourselves to be photographed," he grinned. "Besides, it's not a real Kodak moment unless Mom's part of the discussion, too. The three of us in their bed. That's the picture you want to hold out for," he assured her. "Especially if it's close to dinner, and Mom has half a martini in her. Or if my sister's been giving them grief, and I've been called in to 'do something.' Then you've got the whole family screaming at each other at the top of their—"

"You have a sister?" Michelle interrupted in surprise. "You're kidding. How old?"

"Young. Sixteen."

"Sixteen! My God. How old were you when she was born? You have to be—what? Twenty years older...?"

"Thereabouts. She wasn't exactly planned, as my Dad likes to say," he smirked. "You wouldn't believe how she shook up that household, too. I was glad I was already away at college when she rolled around. Anyway..."

"No, no... tell me about her," Michelle insisted, still stunned to discover that he had a sibling. She had always been under the impression, for some reason, that he was an only child. She would even feel sorry for him sometimes that he didn't have a 'Danny' to cavort and commiserate with, like she did.

"I'll tell ya later," he said, eager to get the conversation back on track.

"Almeida! You've got to stop doing that to me!"

"Honey, we've got more important things to talk about right now," he said gently, sympathetic to how hard it was for her to have to wait for information. But he wanted to get a few things on the table and out of the way before he lost her to sleep, which looked to be only about five or ten minutes away, judging from the weariness in her eyes. One thing he felt he needed to get was a better handle on how she was feeling about him and them, and where she felt their relationship was heading. He was dying to know if a month from now, he'd be the happiest man on earth or downright suicidal. "I'll tell you all about her later. I promise, baby," he said, picking up her hand and placing an apologetic kiss against it.

"Well, at least tell me her name," Michelle pouted in disappointment.

"Olivia L. H. Almeida."

"L?"

"Louis. After the limousine driver who delivered her."

"Oh, how sweet."

"Five-four, brown eyes, black hair—or pink, depending on how nuts she feels like making my Dad. A hundred pounds on a good day. High-eighties when she's hell-bent on driving my Mom, and herself, to an early grave... Her grades suck. She has a boyfriend I don't trust, named Gerald, who's afraid of me, which he oughta be. And she wants to be a supermodel, only over my dead body 'cause she's going to college first, provided she can even get accepted anywhere with her grades as lousy as they are these days... Okay, honey? Is that enough to hold you over for a litte while?"

"And 'H'?"

"Henrique. I gave her that one. It means 'rules the home.' Talk about hitting the nail on the head, too."

"Can I see a picture?" she asked, immediately answering her own question with "Later," in two-part harmony with his reply.

"Okay, then explain your theory to me," she encouraged him again.

"No, not yet, honey," he pleaded with her for patience. "There's something else."

"No, now," she insisted. "This is too important to keep me hanging any longer. I don't know what in the world came over me last night. I don't even know who I am anymore."

"I haven't worked it all out in my head yet, though," he tried to explain.

"So talk it out, then," she implored him. "You know how things start to crystallize when you hear yourself verbalize them?"

Her curiosity was completely killing her.

"I wanna first talk about how fast everything's been moving," he said, "'cause I don't want you to think I haven't noticed it, or been thinking about it."

"I don't doubt that you have, dear," she assured him, suddenly feeling a little worried that maybe he was beginning to back off, as she had feared might happen.

"Well, I have. A lot, in fact," he reported. "But the thing is, I'm not feeling spooked about it. I expected to be, but I'm not at all. Everything feels, y'know— right about it. About, y'know... us."

She was relieved to hear it. Yesterday, at this very hour, they had been "Tony" and "Michelle"; now they were also "dear" and "sweetheart." They had wondered what each other would be like outside of the office, across a dinner table, or shoulder-to-shoulder in a dark movie theatre; now they had already become intimately and irreversibly acquainted in the closest of all possible ways. They'd been boss and subordinate yesterday at this very hour, and still were and would be; only now they were also lovers, on an equal and level playing field, which would invariably affect their office interactions from time to time, she anticipated. All told, enormous changes in their relationship and lives, in general, had already occurred, and all in less than twenty-four hours. All for the better, too, as far as Michelle was concerned. But she had worried about Tony, given the shambles Nina had left him in, evidenced by things Michelle herself could see. She knew his reluctance to verbalize those I-love-you words, for instance, was likely rooted in the damage that Nina had perpetrated upon him.

"Good, honey," she said lightly, not wanting him to dwell on the issue, thinking he'd only worry more about it if she were to expound upon it. "Now tell me what your theory was."

Tony glanced at her a little nervously.

"Well, first... umm," he said cautiously, "I was wondering a little, too, if you had concerns yourself about how fast things were moving, or... y'know... the direction they feel like they're... y'know... going in."

He was dying to hear her response to the latter part of his inquiry, even putting a little extra emphasis on the word "direction."

"I'm not concerned about it either," Michelle answered straightforwardly, without hesitation or equivocation, and much to his relief. "Everything feels perfectly fine, dear. I think that things are just feeling like they're moving faster than normal because we're probably just trying to make up for lost time. Try not to over-intellectualize too much, okay? Just let it happen... Okay, honey? Can we move on to more important matters, now?" she asked.

Tony couldn't imagine what could possibly be more important than the answer that had left him so breathless and relieved, but he would give her the world for the Mack truck she had just handily driven off his chest. She hadn't really answered the part about where she felt they were heading, or even definitively state the degree of affection she was feeling, for that matter. But already he felt a lot more secure about her emotions being in line with his own.

"What important matter would that be, baby," he said softly, reaching over and stroking her cheek, feeling the need to touch her again, just to be sure she was really there.

"Your theory," she answered with a sweet smile that illuminated with excitement.

"Geeziz," he sighed heavily, wishing he had five minutes to give it some thought, but knowing that he had probably gotten as much patience out of her as he was going to get. The same "curiosity that killed the cat" was going to do him in someday, too; he could just see it coming. "Okay, then, but understand... I don't know how much sense any of this is even gonna make, 'cause you're not giving me sufficient time to run it through my head."

"I'll help you figure it out."

"No... No...You'll listen, okay? You're already driving me crazy as it is."

"Fine, then. I'll just listen. That won't be a problem," she beamed.

"Geeziz… Okay, so—so I'm standing there, and I open the medicine cabinet, and the first thing I see is the box... Actually, that damned tampon box was the first thing I saw, Michelle."

"I just shoved it in there temporarily, dear. Don't worry. I'll find a—"

"I thought I asked you to put it where I wouldn't ever have to look at it again, for cryssake," he whined, reaching up to rub his forehead in anguish. "You have no idea what I went through in that store."

"You're just gonna get yourself all upset again, honey. I'll find another place for it. Don't worry. Go on. You opened the medicine cabinet and this thought came to mind... Go on."

"Okay, so... I just immediately thought about this guy Chris, from college. This unbelievable... y'know, lady's man. Ya couldn't imagine how women reacted to this guy. They used to hurl themselves at him. He was our god."

"Am I to believe that you, on the other hand, had problems getting dates?"

"I was shy."

"I'm sure."

"You're supposed to just be listening, remember?"

"Yes, honey, go on. I'm sorry."

"Weren't you the one bugging me to tell you this... even though I wasn't done thinking about it yet?"

"I won't say another thing. Go on, dear. Really."

"So...umm... So we naturally figured that Chris was gonna be the last one of us to get married. Only he was the first. And we couldn't believe it, because on top of it all, this girl he married wasn't even, you know... She wasn't what you would call..."

"Stripper material?"

"Well, I mean... you know... she was just this regular, everyday, ordinary girl. 'Jane' was her name, ironically enough. Like in 'plain Jane.' Nothing special about her, in other words. Yet, out of all the women Chris had drooling over him, this is the one he's marrying... Anyway, on his wedding day I asked him, y'know, if he was sure about this..."

"Nice, Almeida. You were putting second thoughts in the guy's head on his wedding day?"

"Well... everybody was just so stunned. I mean, you had to know this guy. He was constantly bumming condoms off all of us. And using them, too... Women—they just loved him. He had this innate charm and magnetism... like a Joe Namath-kinda guy. We were all in total awe of him. Anyway, so I asked him, 'How do you know Jane is, like... 'it?' And he gives me all the usual garbage. She makes him see stars. She transports him to another planet. He can't get her off his mind. All that business..."

"You're such a die-hard romantic, dear," Michelle half-giggled and half-yawned.

"And then he — Do you wanna hear this?"

"I'm listening."

"I'm gonna lose my train of thought."

"I'll be quiet this time. Really, dear. You just go on," she said, rearranging herself with her head against his chest and her arm draped across his waist. "See? I'm being quiet. This is me being perfectly quiet and listening. Okay?"

"Then how come I can still hear you?"

Michelle lifted a hand in the air and gave him some kind of a signal that he might've understood if he were fluent in sign language. But since she hadn't flipped him the bird, he figured she was just promising not to interrupt again, only using interruptive sign language instead of actual words this time.

"So anyway... umm... I forget where I was... Where was I?... Honey? Where was I?"

Michelle lifted her head and gazed up at him, not sure what to do.

"Well?" he frowned, after staring at her in silence for an interminably long period of time.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to talk."

"Well—well, not when you're asked a question," he said incredulously. "That's different."

"He was telling you all about how Jane..."

"That's the exception, sweetheart. You can talk when you're asked a direct question... Get it? How else can you answer me unless you talk?"

"I get it, dear. So, he tells you about—"

"I'm not psychic, after all."

"I know, dear. Don't upset yourself. He's giving you all these romantic reasons why Jane is 'it'..."

"Right. Okay... And so then he says to me—"

"All set? 'Cause I'm going back to being quiet now."

"Yeah, I'm good."

"You don't need me for anything else right now? You're sure."

"No, I'm good, baby... So he says to me, 'Besides, I'll save a fortune in condoms,' as if he ever did anything but bum them. The man never actually purchased a box of condoms in the entire time I knew him... So I asked him what he meant, because I didn't understand why he would stop using condoms just 'cause he was married. I had just never thought about it before... And he tells me, y'know... 'Well, you don't need them anymore because it's just the two of you now.' He says, if ya want kids, you're not gonna be using them, and if you don't want kids yet, they've got the pill or one of those other birth-control gizmos. And ya know you're never gonna pick up a disease 'cause you're never gonna sleep with anybody but each other...' And I said to him... 'Well, how do you know that for sure?' And he gives me the same routine about how she makes him see stars, she's all he can think about, he's never met anyone like her... all the usual stuff."

He paused to glance down at the top of Michelle's head, fully expecting her to cut in with another wisecrack. But to his shock and amazement, she was keeping her word and remaining quiet.

"So anyway, I run into him years later on the street, and I just assumed, y'know, that Jane's thrown him outta the house by now. He's got all these girlfriends on the side, and she's taken the kids and left him. But, no, the guy's still married, and Jane's great, and their third baby is due in October, and so on. And I couldn't believe it, 'cause... like... he's older, now, and more mature, and if anything, he's even more charismatic than back in college... Are you listening?"

"Uh-huh..." she yawned.

"Am I keeping you up?"

"No, honey, go on. Didn't you just tell me to be quiet? You have me in suspense... Go on, dear," she encouraged him, suppressing another ill-timed yawn.

"Okay, so—'cause I'm getting to the part where the condom box ties in, now."

"I'm listening, honey. This is me listening but not talking."

He rolled his eyes.

"So I'm asking him about marriage, just casually... What it's like... If it ever gets—I don't know—boring. Did he have any regrets about getting hitched so young. And he's swearing up and down, nah, nah, Janie's the greatest. 'Everytime is like the first time,' he says. He just loves her more as the years go by. And he shows me a picture and she's, like... Jane... Only older. And a little chunkier. And again I'm wondering what the hell the big attraction ever was with this woman. I just didn't get it."

He glanced down at Michelle again, amazed that she was actually listening so intently without interrupting. He paused to lean down and plant a quick kiss on the top of her head, feeling she deserved a reward.

"So, it's like Chris was reading my mind, 'cause he says to me, 'Ya wanna know how I knew Janie was the one for me, Almeida?' And he leans in, like he doesn't want anyone to overhear..."

Tony paused for just a fleeting moment to take a breath and organize his thoughts. He knew that what he was about to say carried a motherload of risk, since he wasn't at all convinced that Michelle was as totally comfortable as she claimed to be with the speed at which their relationship was moving. Nor did he know exactly how intensely she felt about him; or whether she had even gotten to the point of visualizing herself with him twenty years down the road, as he had. What's more, he himself was suddenly experiencing a slight case of cold feet. It seemed like forever since the last time he had been involved in a 'love' kind of discussion, only to eventually have his heart mutilated in return by the daughter of Satan, who shall remain nameless. But he was this far into the story and knew that he couldn't very well turn back now. He had already long since passed the point of no return.

He drew another silent breath, reminding himself that this was not the demon woman he was talking about love with. This was Michelle, now: the woman he could easily see still taking his breath away decades from now, as though they were making love for the very first time all over again.

"So Chris leans in," he bravely continued, "and I lean in and he says, 'This is when I knew for sure that Janie was it.' He says, 'It was this one night when we had sex without using a condom. And it was like the fear of diseases, and all that stuff, didn't even matter anymore, 'cause in the back of my head I knew that if Janie had some kinda deadly disease, then I wanted to die from it, too, 'cause life wasn't gonna be worth going on with unless Janie was there with me'... And then… umm... then he, uhh... he looks at me and he says... 'And that's how ya know when you're in love for real, Almeida. When you're making love to her and you're not even thinking twice about condums.'"

Tony could feel himself breaking into a sweat at this point. He nervously glanced down at her, hoping for some kind of reaction to his buddy's pearls of wisdom, which stunningly paralleled his own behavior last night — his subconscious mindset, he had theorized — when he'd made love to Michelle repeatedly without even once thinking about protection. But he knew that Work-Michelle would now be joining the fold, and it always took her a couple of minutes to quietly process, digest, and assess incoming data before responding to it. So if he was even going to get a reaction at all at this point in the story, he knew he was looking at a good 60-to-90-second wait.

"Chris didn't actually say 'making love,' of course," he nervously added, trying to kill some time. "Guys generally use other words... y'know... a little more colorful than that when it's just guys talking."

He felt his heart pounding hard in his chest, which he knew she had to notice since her head was resting directly on top of it. He was dying to know what was going through her mind. She couldn't have missed the not-so-subtle nexus between Chris's epiphany and his own subconscious actions last night; nor could she miss the unspoken conclusion that he was conspicuously drawing, based on Chris's tip-off to knowing when one was officially in love.

At least Michelle wasn't reacting negatively, he thought... or not yet, anyway. But maybe this hadn't been such a good time to get into this in-love business, on second thought. Their relationship was only about fifteen-or-so-hours old, after all. Maybe it was just way too soon and intimidating for her. Perhaps she was feeling like she was being rushed into agreeing that she loved him, too, only before she had even come to that conclusion on her own, in own good time. She might not be ready to make so heavy and committed a statement as that. Maybe that's what she was thinking about right now, only wasn't quite sure how to tell him without alienating or wounding him.

But he knew he needed to get a better handle on where he stood with her; especially given what had actually crept into his mind earlier while he had been shaving. He'd suddenly found himself wondering who could recommend a good jeweler to him. He certainly couldn't ask Jack; the she-devil had murdered his wife, for cryssake. Not his Dad, either; it would be too embarrassing if he helped him find a ring and then Michelle turned him down. And not his Mom, even though she knew more about jewelry than Harry Winston, Van Cleef and Arpel combined; she'd be on the phone with him every two minutes, asking if he'd popped the question yet.

Tony drew another deep, courageous breath.

"So, umm... I was just thinking..." he said, giving her shoulder another huggish-type squeeze.

"I'm listening," she assured him in a low voice, which immediately signaled trouble to him.

"Well, I mean, I was just thinking... maybe that's the explanation for what happened last night... Like, maybe we're just, umm... just, y'know, in love or something..." he said with a level of nervousness in his voice that even a deaf person could detect. "And that... well, maybe last night happened because we... y'know, we just sort of instinctually knew that we were each other's... 'it'... if you know what I mean."

"Mmmm..." she responded.

In no way was that a good "mmmmm," he immediately thought, feeling himself officially graduate from nervous to panicky. He hadn't been romantic enough; that's what it was. He could tell. He could definitely detect disappointment in her "mmmm." Dejection. Even a little anger, if he wanted to be completely honest with himself. Women want romance at a time like this. He had noticed in the waiting room, when he'd gone to have his teeth cleaned, that there wasn't a men's magazine out there that didn't have an extremely long article stressing that very point, over and over again. "Maybe we're in love" was far from romantic. It wasn't even close to a statement of fact, much less a committed one. There was no "maybe" about it. He knew he was in love. For real. Just as Chris had described.

"So, umm... sweetheart... does that make any kind of sense to you?" he ventured forward, wishing he could do something about the nervousness that appeared to have a stranglehold on his vocal chords. "That... the reason we never even thought about protection was because we're, uhh... y'know... in love... or something?"

That one didn't count. That was just a warm-up, he immediately thought, cutting himself a break. "Or something" was where he had gone wrong. It made the whole concept of being in love seem too casual; as if it were no big deal. But it was a big deal. It was the biggest damned deal of his life, for cryssake. Stark fear or not, he decided, if he were actually going to take the plunge and confess to her that he was indeed in love with her, he was just going to have buck up, be brave, and spit it the hell out. None of this "we" stuff, either. It's "I" or nothing, he instructed himself. He suddenly wished he had a coach, like fighters did when they went to their corners. He'd always had immense respect for boxing coaches, the way they psyched their guys up between rounds, and threw water in their faces, and rubbed their shoulders, and cut their eyelids, and reminded them of what they needed to do in there to get the job done; which strategy they had to employ; where they had gone wrong in the previous round. Coaches never got the recognition and respect they deserved, in his humble opinion. He couldn't even imagine how many famous heavyweight champs might never have been won their title had it not been for the coach.

He quickly leaned in and planted a long, soft kiss on the crown of her head, simultaneously and tenderly stroking her hair with the hopes of buying himself a few extra needed seconds to regroup and plan his next statement. He wished he had invested the time to discipline himself, as Michelle had obviously done for years, to analyze and assess his feelings and thoughts, and formulate his words wisely before he spoke them, not afterwards.

"Look, umm... sweetheart... I think what I'm trying to say here is, umm... I guess it's 'cause I'm... y'know... I'm in love with you, y'see, and, uhh... I was thinking that's probably why I hadn't even thought about using, y'know... protection. Like, it was the furthest thing from my mind at the time, like Chris was saying... when he was talking about knowing for sure when you're in love, and all, and... Well, anyway, honey," he said in a sweat, "that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw that box... Y'know?"

"I'll move it..." Michelle sighed.

"Hmmm?"

"I just stuck it there..." she explained, lifting her head in the direction of his voice and vowing to find a much better location to store the tampon box.

"Michelle?"

"I'm listening," she assured him, though by now he could clearly see that she was asleep. She was opening and closing her eyes nonetheless, in wide, exaggerated blinks, and struggling to push herself up on her elbow, toppling over the first time out. She got herself reasonably balanced on the second attempt, however, sniffling a few times as she rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand.

"Honey?" he said in amazement.

"I wasn't talking," she insisted in a disoriented whine, her eyes sealing shut once again.

She had gotten herself onto her knees and was swaying now, seemingly unaware that she was losing her balance and about to keel over any second again. Tony sat up, still dumbstruck, and reached out to steady her. He held the side of her waist with one hand and gently stroked her damp hair behind her ear with the other. Her curls slid around in his palm and through his fingers as she forced her eyes halfway open again and turned her head in a few directions. She peered around the room, not precisely sure where she was, and trying to get her bearings, until she finally found his face and focused in on it with a sweet, punch-drunken smile.

"C'mere, baby," he said with a soft, warm chuckle, beaming back at her although her eyes had already closed up again. He eased her down beside him, got rid of his towel, and dragged the sheet over both of them this time.

"Then what happened?" she asked in her effectively unconscious state, seemingly trying to suppress a yawn as if not wanting to give him the wrong impression, like she wasn't fully focused and clinging to every word he was saying. He suppressed the laughter that was begging to be released, shifting her body a bit until she was a little better aligned and centered against her pillow. He then settled himself in, with his head parked up against his hand again, using his free hand to gently sweep the scores of runaway curls back from her face.

"So, then," he said softly, smiling so wide that his cheeks ached, "Let me think… Oh, yeah... Right... So then the Papa Bear turned to the Mama Bear and said, 'Don't even think about ever sending me out on a tampon run again, woman..."

"I'll move them," Michelle mumbled, clearly asleep, as tears of laughter began pooling up in his eyes.

"… and then Papa Bear said, 'Well, you had just better do that, or I might never speak to you again, even though I know that you're my 'it' and... I really... I really do love you...y'know...'"

"Love you, too," Michelle murmured, unconsciously and barely audibly into the pillow, her voice tapering off as her mind finally surrendered itself to deep sleep.

A light gasp hit him in the throat. He felt his jaw drop and his heart slam hard against the wall of his chest. It had stunned him to hear her say that. He hadn't expected it. He stared at her, feeling the tears of laughter that stung his eyes suddenly beginning to transform into a different type of tears. He even felt that weird lump forming in his throat, though wasn't sure what to owe it all to. He watched as his arms seemed to take it upon themselves to slide under and around her, gently pulling her as tightly against him as they could without waking her. A hand brought her head snuggly into the crook of his neck, and he found himself nuzzling his face against her cheek, resting his lips alongside her ear. Her light, warm breath against his neck felt like life being breathed back into his soul.

"I love you, baby... Geeziz," he whispered to her with almost a tone of desperation to his voice.

He knew she couldn't hear him and was grateful for that. He'd really only needed to hear himself say it again. He hadn't realized until that moment how truly frightened he'd been about falling in love and placing the power to incapacitate him into the hands of another woman. But he suddenly felt so safe with her, and overwhelmed with trust and a sense of relief. Just releasing those words from his mouth felt cathartic and soothing and healing to him. He said them again, low against her ear, feeling her stir in reaction to the ticklish sensation his breath had produced.

He found himself feeling equally stunned by the freeing effect her words had also had on him. He suddenly felt like he was finally back among the living. He hadn't even realized how long he'd been gone until this grinning little curly headed punch-drunk had muttered those words into her pillow, unlocking a door that he had been vulnerably cowering behind for what seemed like centuries to him, now. But her words had taken hold of his hand and walked him bravely back through it, flooding him with what felt like a fresh surge of courage and power.

He suddenly understood what it was about Jane — or, rather, what it wasn't about. It wasn't about looks or body shape, or a scintillating personality or lack thereof. It was about two old familiar souls, from past lives, bumping into each other on Planet Earth and diving into each others arms, elated to see each other once again, and knowing how much finer and easier the journey ahead was going to be with both of them traveling it together now.

That was probably the thing he'd wanted to get at in the back of his mind, which he likely would have succeeded in doing, given enough time and thought. But talking it out and hearing himself verbalize his thoughts had crystallized things for him, just as Michelle had said it would. In fact, most of the things Michelle said always seemed to somehow end up being dead on the money. Maybe he would start trusting the advice she gave him as implicitly as he now trusted her with his heart. Maybe, as he continued to serve as Director of CTU, he would bring her in to serve as Director of Them.


	6. Their First Fight

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 6: Their First Fight_

"No way, baby," he assured her with an ear-to-ear grin, tearing open the envelope of his electric bill. He crossed over to the wall unit that housed the television in the living room, Michelle directly on his heels.

"You cannot do this to me!" she bellowed in frustration, bumping into him as he stooped to open a drawer and grab his checkbook, then following in his steps again as he moved into the kitchen, opening and closing drawers in search of stamps.

"I know that when you combine breakfast and lunch, they call it 'brunch,'" Tony paused, reflectively staring off into space, "but what do ya call it when ya do lunch and dinner together? Would that be 'linner,' ya think? Or 'lunchner'?... It wouldn't be 'dunch' or 'dunchner.' That would sound too weird, don't ya think?"

"You are not changing the subject, mister, so you might as well just stop trying. Tell me what happened then. He was going through a litany of 'romantic garbage' about Jane... and then he was reading your mind... and something about Jane and October... and a bear... Is Jane a zoologist? Yes or no!"

"It was a boy," Tony grinned, dropping into the chair that Michelle had occupied during breakfast. "A healthy, bouncing, 147-pound Kodiak. They named him Cody after Chris's cousin."

"Don't you dare get smart with me!" she seethed. "This is not the least bit funny—or fair! I have a right to know the end of that story."

"Fine," he relented with a deep sigh. "And then they lived happily ever... Owww!"

Tony rubbed the back of his head, feigning a stinging sensation where Michelle had landed the rolled-up Newsweek magazine she'd been waving around in a threatening manner for the past five minutes. Oddly, although the swat was as feebly weak as it could get, it had suddenly stirred the memory of his first dog, Peppy, whom the family's housekeeper had once swatted with a rolled-up Wall Street Journal, for which she had been promptly fired on the spot. Not for having swatted Peppy, but because she had used the holy book of Wall Street instead of the LA Times, which his Dad, an avowed Republican, still referred to as "that commie-pinko rag" to this day. And if disrespectfully mishandling the sacred journal hadn't been enough for the housekeeper to have sealed her own fate, she had rolled up the editorial section, which his Dad hadn't even finished reading yet.

"That hurt, Michelle," he lied, trying desperately not to laugh.

"You don't know what 'hurt' is, buddy," she fumed. "You start talking right now or you are gonna be in a world of hurt when I'm done with you!"

"Will pink fuzzy handcuffs and leather be involved? 'Cause I may have to get back to you on that," he smirked, reflexively bracing for another Newsweek delivery to the back of his head. But when none appeared to be forthcoming, he cautiously turned in his chair and glanced back at Michelle. She was absolutely livid.

Tony had already planned to fill in the blanks to the parts of the story Michelle had missed, only this time over "linner" at that new Thai place a couple of blocks away. He was actually grateful for the do-over opportunity and figured a restaurant would be more romantic than sitting at a breakfast table paying bills. He clearly remembered "restaurant" being on the list of romantic places in that extremely long men's magazine article he had read in the dentist's waiting room.

Besides, he was hungry again. And even though, by restaurant standards, four o'clock-ish was a little too late for lunch and way too early for dinner, the restaurant was brand new to a neighborhood saturated with competitors. Tony was certain that, under the circumstances, the proprietors weren't about to turn prospective long-term patrons away just for having shown up at an unorthodox hour. That would be corporate suicide, given the statistical odds against a new restaurant even surviving its first year.

But Tony had no intention of letting Michelle know of his plans to clue her in over linner just yet. He was having way too much fun tormenting her.

"You almost made me overpay the electric company by a thousand dollars, y'know," he facetiously complained, rising up from his seat to find the AmEx bill he just remembered having brought in from the mail the day before. Michelle trailed directly behind him, Newsweek clenched firmly in her pathetically weak fist.

"Don't make me have to get rough with you, buddy!" she threatened him loudly and clearly. "You seem to have conveniently forgotten that I'm an officer of the law who's gone through the same exact training as you, and trust me when I assure you that I will not hesitate, if necessary, to resort to—"

She seemed to be flying through the air. Wind and colors were suddenly passing her at amazing speeds on both sides of her peripheral field. She looked up from the carpet where she now seemed to be lying almost flat on her back, except that a strategically placed foot beneath her, slightly above her tailbone, appeared to have broken the fall that she couldn't quite remember having taken. She peered up at him through eyes that felt double their normal dimensions, although she couldn't quite recall offhand when they had begun to expand in size. Nor was she exactly sure why his hands were holding her by the shoulders as he coyly smiled down at her, terribly pleased with himself.

"You seem to have forgotten to pick up your hand-to-hand certification in Badass class," he chuckled with the same smug smile that the rookie would sport, following the extremely few times he had managed to put one over on her.

"You took fundamentally unfair advantage of me!" she accused, wanting to poke his chest with her fingertip, but having to settle for his denim-clad calf instead, since it was as far as her immobilized arm could reach. She was trying not to sound like too huge of a sore loser, but her inability to either free herself from the strategic, albeit gentle, hold he had on her shoulders, or to position her feet in such a way as to get back up on them again, was infuriating her more with every second that ticked by.

"How do you figure that?" Tony asked innocently, continuing to hold her in his favorite disarming position, wondering what the odds were of getting her to say "uncle." He hadn't even been successful in getting her to say "The Sperminator" yet, so he decided to put the idea on the back burner. "I thought we were both officers of the law who've gone through the exact same training," he reminded her of her own words.

"If you had allowed me to complete my sentence," she glared up at him, incensed, with icy eyes and a clenched jaw, "you would know that I had intended to go on to cite my near-perfect score at the firing range... as opposed to your own, if I might be so blunt as to remind you of."

"You're not gonna shoot me," he snickered confidently, easily drawing her back onto her feet in one smooth whisk. "You wouldn't have the heart," he said, casually strolling back to the table. "At least not according to what you were saying earlier on."

Michelle froze.

"Huh? ... When? Earlier when?" she asked, fearing the worst.

She was only too aware of her tendency to talk in her sleep. She had never even known that she did it until a couple of years ago. She and her brother Danny had slept in the twin beds in their Aunt Hildie's guest room when they'd spent a weekend painting the kitchen, hallway, and dining room for her, as they did together every year. Danny had razzed her the following morning, repeating a variety of statements he had coaxed out of her as she'd cooperatively murmured away, including the fact that she secretly despised their aunt's pet schnauzer; had always wanted to jump out of the cake at a bachelor party, just once in her life; and wished she had bigger breasts, but was afraid to go for silicone implants after having read a host of controversial reports regarding their ultimate safety in the long run.

None to Michelle's surprise, Tony ignored her direct question, as usual, opting instead to simply grin like the Cheshire cat and seat himself back down, leaving her standing there with her face systematically draining itself of color.

"What was I saying? When?" she demanded to know, stooping over to pick up the rumpled Newsweek magazine, feeling she'd likely be needing it again shortly.

As she tightly re-rolled it between her palms, she paused to give herself the recognition she felt she was due for the sting her swat had generated moments earlier, judging by how loudly he had yelped upon impact. Danny, on the other hand, always only laughed at her whenever she'd swat him with a magazine. But they had grown up in a household that had only subscribed to Reader's Digest and the TV Guide, both of which were small publications. The key to landing a blow she could really be proud of evidently rested in the standard, fuller-sized magazine. She made a mental note to pick up an issue of Vogue, which was generally twice as thick as his flimsy Newsweek. Or, better yet, a French Vogue, the thickness of which typically resembled the telephone book of a small city. In fact, she decided, that the minute he began to show signs of habitually withholding information from her, she would take out a subscription in his name and address, just to be sure she would always have a French Vogue on hand.

"I would repeat what ya said, only I'm not the type who kisses and tells," Tony nonchalantly informed her, positioning a stamp on the electric bill's return envelope and dabbing the flap with his tongue. "But I'll tell you this much," he added, struggling to keep a straight face. "I know you're not gonna shoot me, because you know that I know that you know… Well, suffice it to say that you don't hate me, okay? Quite the opposite, in fact."

"What 'fact'? What did I say! Out with it, mister!"

"Y'know, I'm gonna start putting you in the interrogation room more often. I mean that, honey," he frowned, as though suddenly appreciating the true brilliance behind the executive epiphany he'd just had. "Do you have any idea how much the Unit would save every year on torture devices, training, and specialized personnel just by subscribing annually to Newswe — oww!"

The magazine landed square across his bare shoulder blades this time as he had reached for the AmEx bill.

"Don't make me have to defend myself, Michelle," he warned her, struggling not to burst into uproarious laughter from how very much of a punch her wallop most definitely did not pack. The force that her delicate arm was able to muster was stunningly lightweight, in fact. She had better be a good shot, he chuckled to himself, because if she ever had to physically restrain a prisoner, she'd be laid up in the hospital for a month thereafter. He made a decision on the spot that he would be the one to train whatever puppies they might acquire over the years, convinced that any swat Michelle would apply in the housebreaking process would only make the dog laugh in her face.

"You know what? You're just making this all up," it suddenly dawned on her, accompanied by an enormously soothing sense of relief flooding her every molecule, knowing there was no way she would ever violate the code: not even in her sleep.

"How would you know one way or the other, even if I were?" he confidently smirked. "You were out like a light."

"Because the woman never says that kind of thing first. Not in her sleep. Not under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Not under any circumstances, ever. It's an unwritten code of the hills. The guy has to say it first. It's been that way for centuries."

"Oh, I see," Tony sing-sang with a patronizing smile as she suddenly felt her molecules beginning to tense up again. "Well, if that's the case, I guess I must be mistaken about what ya confessed to me, then."

Michelle's solar plexus clutched on the word "confessed," but she nevertheless decided to just toss in the towel at this point, since she was obviously getting nowhere with him, and resigned herself to possibly never knowing what she had told him in her sleep — not that she was entirely sure she even wanted to know. If she had told him about her desire to jump out of a cake, for instance, she might very well go on to become the first living soul to go down in the Guinness Book of World Records for having literally died of embarrassment.

She threateningly clapped the rolled-up Newsweek against the open palm of her hand a few more times, just to remind him of the damage she was both capable and willing to perpetrate upon him again in the future, if necessary.

"I'm gonna get you for this someday, Almeida. You mark my words," she leaned into him and vowed, speaking in a low, controlled voice only inches away from his face. "I'm gonna devise a way to make you just as crazy as you're making me, and you're never going to know when it's coming, either. I could spring it on you next week or five years from next week. Try sleeping at night with that in mind, okay, buddy boy?"

"Hey, I'll sleep just fine," he leaned in and further infuriated her with a quick kiss, "just as long as ya keep telling me stuff like you were saying before… Owww!" he whined, then broke into laughter, incapable of holding back the floodgates any longer, which only made her that much more irate. But nowhere close to the degree as when he took her Newsweek away from her by simply and effortlessly popping it out of her white-knuckled fist with the same ease he would a lollipop from the hand of a four-year-old.

"Wait… C'mere, baby. Come back. I'll stop laughing… I swear," he said, guffawing himself half-sick, with tears pouring out of his eyes, but nonetheless stretching his arms out to her, wanting to ease her frustration. He knew he couldn't have it both ways — easing her frustration and causing it, too — but felt it incumbent upon himself to at least give it a try.

"Don't you touch me, you behemoth!" she fumed, prompting him to double over in uncontrollable laughter upon realizing that he had no idea what a "behemoth" was. It was just one of those words he'd always meant to look up, but had just never gotten around to it. He fleetingly considered asking her what the definition was, but feared she might actually shoot him with his own weapon at that point.

"Okay, okay," he said, attempting to pull himself together and make peace with her again. "Just — just go get dressed, honey."

"I thought I was," she snapped, curiously staring down at his new white long-sleeved t-shirt with the big Cubs emblem on it, then up at him again as he pulled some paper towels from the rack, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose into them.

"Honey, don't use that, for Pete'ssake! What's _wrong_ with you?" she chastised him, dangerously nearing her wits' end. "You're gonna make your skin all sore and irritated! Don't you know anything?"

It was completely beyond her how a man so intelligent could be so frighteningly ignorant at the same time, not only in the arena of feminine protection products, but common household paper goods, as well.

"No, I meant get dressed in your clothes. In that pretty dress."

"Why? Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you out to 'linner,'" he said, allowing a final stream to tears to flow from his behemoth eyeballs into the unacceptable paper toweling before Michelle forcibly snatched it from his hands, replacing it with the aloe-treated facial tissues she'd frenetically pulled from her purse. "Just hurry it up, okay, baby? I'm starving," he said, struggling to end his laughing jag before she became the first person in history to file for a divorce prior to marriage.

"But what about The Navarone Guns you were dying to see?" she asked.

"It's 'The Guns of Navarone,'" he flinched, as though someone had just hammered a nail through his head. He glanced upward while he blew his nose again, imploring the testosterone gods to have mercy on him for having hooked up with a woman capable of making so egregious an error. "It's too early to watch it," he informed her.

"Don't be silly, honey. It's a DVD. There's no set showtime. You can watch it anytime you like."

His hand moved up to his forehead, then down the length of his face.

"'The Guns' is a nighttime movie, Michelle. It's still daylight outside. You just don't understand," he shook his head, certain that the gods were shaking theirs, too, and signing him up for an eternal box seat in hell once his time on Earth had expired.

"Do you really like that dress?" she asked, unknowingly interrupting his appeal to the overlords for just a little more time to work with her.

"Yes, honey, very much. Speed it up, though, okay?" he pleaded, running cold water into the kitchen sink and leaning in to splash it in his face.

Michelle slowly headed toward the hallway, pausing momentarily before making the turn.

"So, umm… Is there anything... y'know... any one particular thing you happen to like about it?"

"About what," Tony answered, not certain if it was all right to dry his face with paper towels. But Michelle didn't look too distressed as he reached in their general direction, so he went ahead and took the chance.

"The dress. You said you thought it was pretty."

"It is, honey. I like those flowers on it," he mindlessly mumbled. "Why?"

"No reason," she said indifferently, lightly shrugging a shoulder. He looked up at her as she turned into the hallway, surprised to see such a bright, shy smile across her face, considering she had been beating him with a Newsweek and accusing him of behemoth-like behavior only mere minutes ago.

"Why?" he repeated curiously, catching up with her and trailing her into the bedroom.

"Nothing, dear. I just sort of... well, y'know, made it, is all. No big deal," she casually brushed it off, appearing a little embarrassed for even having brought it up in the first place.

"No way," Tony said gently, with a broad smile spreading, purposely injecting an element of shock and amazement into his reaction. "You made that? Get out of here…"

He did like the yellow flowers against the white background — or was it the other way around — but nowhere near as much as he loved the familiar light blush creeping across her cheeks as she worked to conceal her pride.

"It was no big deal, honestly, honey. It's just a sundress," she shrugged again, removing it from the closet. But from the nervousness in her voice alone, Tony could easily see that it was indeed a big deal to her. She obviously wasn't all that confident in her sewing abilities; nor did she seem so sure she had done a good job, evidenced by the way she peered closely at the stitching on one of the shoulder straps before laying the dress on the bed and smoothing it out with her hands.

He pulled out a shirt that his sister had given him and tossed it onto the bed, thinking Michelle would probably like the way that really pale, thin mint-green pinstripe running through it sort of matched the leaves in her dress. He went about pulling boxers, socks, and a relatively new pair of black jeans from his bureau drawer, noticing that she seemed to be glancing around the room in search of something.

"Hanging on the handle... in the tub," he reminded her, pulling her "matching set" bra from the underwear drawer and tossing it onto the bed. "Don't take forever, okay?" he implored her, feeling another hunger pain stab him in the gut.

He hurriedly slid out of his old jeans and began re-dressing himself, getting up to the point of one leg inside the black jeans before hearing a cell phone ring in the living room — his or hers, he couldn't tell which. But as he hobbled inside, his heart sank to his feet, fearing the absolute worst-case scenario: that it was CTU-related, and either he or she, or both of them, were being called in to handle something that could just as well have waited until Monday morning.

"Almeida," he cautiously said into the mouthpiece, only to exhale a huge sigh of relief a second later. "Mom… Yeah, good. What's going on," he said, struggling to cradle the tiny phone between his ear and shoulder without inadvertently hanging up on her as he danced his other leg into the jeans and dragged them up over his hips.

"No, Mom… Mom? … No, today's not good… Nah, I can't… 'Cause I'm in the middle of something… Mom? … Ma… I just told you I…"

He released a deep sigh as she steamrolled over him, wondering if he should allow his face to accidentally disconnect them, on second thought, and just take the heat when he called her back a few hours later, pleading dead-battery. He leaned a hand against his hip, silently and patiently standing and listening as she reiterated the fine details of a situation he already knew all about.

"Well… what about Mrs. Madison? … Maddigan. Right. Why did you even bother hiring her if— But, Mom," he said, closing his eyes and dropping his chin down to his chest. Please, Lord, no; please not today, he thought in disbelief. "So why can't Lou just put in a couple of hours of overtime, if that's the case?" he griped, then rolled his eyes at himself for having forgotten that Lou's little girl was back in the hospital for yet another orthopedic surgery on the leg she had badly broken two years back.

"Look, Mom, I don't know what to tell ya, but today is so out of the question, it isn't even funny… Nah, it's not that… No… Mom, it's just something, y'know, personal, okay? … No, I feel fine, I swear… No, I don't wanna speak to Dad about it…"

He shut his eyes again, a little more tightly this time, knowing he was losing a battle he was never going to have won in the first place. He rubbed his fingertips back and forth across his forehead, quickly formulating an alternate plan of action in his head.

"Geeziz… Yeah, I know, Ma, but… Yeah, I understand all that, but… Fine… Geeziz… No, fine, okay?… Yeah, I'm angry! Why? Is that gonna change anything? … Here, take down the address I'm gonna be at. Do ya have a pencil? … No, _you_ call Lou and tell him the address. I'm in the middle of something here… Huh? … What's whose name? … Mom… Ma… Just go get a pencil, okay? I'll hold… I'm not being fresh, Mom. I'm just in a hurry. Can ya go get a pencil? ... Fine. Fine. Can ya _please_ just go get a pencil? How's that? ... Geeziz..."

Michelle frowned, wondering what all the commotion was about inside as she slid out of her Cubs t-shirt and into her "matching set." His words were too muffled to discern whom it was he was barking at. It couldn't be Chappelle. He barked differently at Chappelle, she calmly reminded herself, saying a quiet prayer that whatever was riling him up was anything in the world other than CTU-related. It would break her heart if they had to go in.

Silence. Except for the sound of the refrigerator door opening.

"I hope you're not wrecking your appetite," she called out to him. "I'm ready to walk out the door in three minutes, tops, dear."

"It's just milk," he called back, hastily taking another long slug directly from the container and returning it to the refrigerator shelf before Michelle could emerge and give him grief for not using a glass, as every other woman in his life had religiously done from the day he was born. He invested a quiet moment in shaking off his anger and frustration before returning to the bedroom. He refused to allow his mother's ill-timed request — make that adamant insistence — to interfere with his time with Michelle.

"Who was that?" she asked, groping at the buttons on the back of her dress, instantly feeling her snoop antennae go up as he reentered the bedroom.

"A surprise," he said, putting on a happy face and sliding into his shirt. "You're gonna love it."

"Tell me," she said.

"No, and don't start," he replied, turning her around to fasten the remaining buttons. "Y'know, I still can't believe you made this," he commented, happy to change the subject, and for yet another opportunity to make a little bit more of a fuss. "Who helped you with it, anyway?"

"No one, silly. I did it myself," she casually announced, nervously smoothing her palms across the thigh area. "Why? Does it look complicated?"

"Well," he said, spending a moment giving it some thought, "it looks like there's an awful lot of stuff involved here… Y'know, ya got the straps, for one thing… Then the front's sewn onto the back, and the back's got that opening, and everything… Then all these little buttons… Where do ya even go to buy something like that, anyway? Ya never see them around, like in a supermarket, or anything…"

It was all she could do not to laugh out loud.

"You buy buttons right in the fabric store, silly," she informed him, wondering which rock he'd just crawled out from under. "They've got zillions of them in every imaginable size, shape, pattern and color."

"Ah," was all he said, probably feeling a little foolish right about now, Michelle assumed. Men. If there were suddenly no women on Earth anymore, men would all be walking around with their shirts wide open, not a one of them having any idea where to go to purchase buttons, she was certain of it. In fact, who was she kidding: they wouldn't even bother wearing shirts anymore. Dispensing with the dress code would likely be the first thing they would do. Bare chests would become the new norm, and sports jerseys would serve as standard fare on formal occasions.

She suddenly felt a delayed rush of exhilaration course through her. She couldn't believe he had thought someone must have helped her; it could only mean that the dress had turned out better than she had thought. It was hard for her to be objective, but overall, she felt she had done a reasonably decent job under the accelerated circumstances; especially given that buttonholes had been involved. She was embarrassingly pathetic at that. For whatever the reason, she just couldn't seem to get the hang of it.

"Y'know, I could make you something, too, if you like," she mentioned nonchalantly.

"You're kidding me," he said, moving to the bureau and quickly dragging a comb through his hair with the usual four careless strokes.

"Nah. What would you like? I mean, I can't really make a coat, or anything exceptionally complex like that, but..."

"Well, good thing we live in sunny California, in that case, huh?" he lightly offered in the hopes of easing her concerns, entering the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth while she finished gathering her hair into a ponytail-ish kind of thing at the top of her head.

"So, what do you think you would like?" she smiled excitedly as he returned to the dresser. He paused to tuck in his shirttails and slide on a belt before picking up his watch. He thought hard for a few moments, or at least tried to make it appear that way, and purposely threw a frown into his expression, while he was at it. It would increase the illusion that he was busy giving deep and serious consideration to her exciting offer, he felt.

"You're saying I could have anything I want, basically? I mean, short of something excessively complicated, like a coat?"

"Basically," she answered casually, trying not to come off as too boastful or pretentious about her talents.

"Hmmm," he said, blending a little awe into his tone before returning to his thoughts.

It didn't really matter what she ended up making for him. If the thing ended up having three sleeves, he would still gush over it as if it were couture that had fallen into his hands straight off the runway of whichever the hottest design house was these days. It was Michelle's pride in her creation, coupled with her timid desire to tell him that she'd made it herself, that warmed his heart to no end. She'd reminded him of a kid showing her mother a drawing she'd done in school, a little uncertain about having colored the dog purple, but bursting with pride and newfound security in her decision upon watching her mother proudly adhere her drawing to the refrigerator door.

Dying of suspense, Michelle crossed over to him and assumed the task of buckling the wristband, hoping that eliminating his need to multi-task might speed the decision-making process along. He quietly petted her hair with his free hand, noticing her periodically glancing up at him, trying to determine if he was genuinely impressed with her ability to sew, or just leading her on and pulling her leg.

"Y'know, I think I'd like a surprise, actually," he said with a serious, thoughtful frown and a nod of his head as she completed her band-buckling task and patted his wrist. "I kinda like surprises, to tell ya the truth."

She made a mental note of that.

"Okay," she chirped, greatly relieved of now having the option to make something on the easier side, like a cotton bathrobe, instead of having to stick with whatever he'd decided on, which might have been something more complicated, such as a shirt with a slew of buttons. All it took was one screwed-up buttonhole to doom an entire shirt, she knew only too well.

He fished a sports jacket out the closet and mechanically filled its pocket with the usual necessities. "Don't forget your cell," he reminded her as he reminded himself.

He took a quiet moment to communicate with the gods again, asking them to take note that the woman sewed. That had to count for something. After all, how many women sewed these days, just like back in the Old West? The days of John Wayne, when men were men and women were women, and that was pretty much all there was to it? Surely he deserved extra points for having found a woman of such high caliber and bygone talent. Especially when you factored in that she also had less power behind her magazine swats than even his mother, and probably threw a ball like a girl, too.

He suddenly felt a great sense of relief flooding through him as he watched her perform her final task of slipping on a slinky pair of sandals, with a slender little high-heel like the kind women always wore in those great old movies from back in the 50's. Maybe that box seat in hell wasn't quite as etched in stone as he had originally presumed. Maybe he still had a shot, once his time on Earth had expired, at being eternally seated at the right hand of John Wayne after all.


	7. The Stroll

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 7: The Stroll_

A few steps into their four-block journey, Tony transferred Michelle from the outside of the sidewalk to the inside. It was an act of chivalry that went back to the era of horse-drawn carriages, even before the days of the Old West, his Dad had explained to him when he was about six. Men walked on the outside, closest to the street, so that if a carriage splashed puddle water up at passers-by, the man's clothes would absorb the brunt of it, not the woman's. Likewise, if a dangerous incident were to occur in the street, the woman would be the better protected of the two. Tony hadn't questioned the custom at the time, nor did he now. It seemed right for the guy to take the hit, so he always walked on the outside, just as his Dad and every other Almeida male before them had done.

But the significance of the act seemed to take on new meaning as he switched positions with Michelle now. While other women would always ask him what he was doing and why he had done it, Michelle appeared to already know; she had even seemed to anticipate it coming. It made him smile, realizing that she, too, must have been raised by the same old-fashioned code of behavior — also known as basic manners — which was fast and regrettably becoming extinct, Tony would often notice. He missed those niceties that men used to do for women, but which most were too terrified to perform anymore for fear of being clubbed with a fully loaded briefcase by an ultra-militant feminist predisposed to perceiving such well-intentioned gestures as acts of war.

As he took Michelle's hand back into his own and slid his other hand into the front pocket of his jeans, a memory soared into his head of nearly two decades ago, when the feminist movement had finally seen the fruits of its labor blossom into hard, statistical results throughout the 1980's. Tony, about nineteen or twenty at the time, had approached his Dad's office building one afternoon and deliberately held himself back from opening the door for a woman in front of him, who looked only a couple of years older and strikingly attractive. But door-opening had already been deemed taboo, and although Tony had never really understood why, he knew he had to abide by the edicts set forth by "the movement" if he wished to avoid being "briefcased" and possibly rendered incapable of reproducing thereafter.

But it was such an exceptionally heavy door, and it had so grated at his conscience to just stand there while she struggled with it, that he finally gave in and swung it open for her. As a token of her gratitude, she had promptly thanked him with a 20-second lecture on how Neanderthals, such as himself, had better start getting used to the fact that the so-called "weaker sex" was just as capable of opening a door as he; how the days of men ruling the world — translation: of ruling her — were officially over; and that if he ever wanted to "get into the pants of another woman in his lifetime," he'd be wise to start getting with the program and respecting the wishes of "today's women."

He chuckled to himself now as he recalled how, only mere hours later, the same woman didn't seem to mind when he'd opened her bedroom door for her. Nor had she balked when he took the lead in the meaningless sex they'd engaged in that afternoon. She'd invited him at one point to feel free to get a little rough with her, explaining that she was "into that." He wasn't, but remembered thinking how stiflingly hypocritical her mindset was: She had lectured him for daring to exhibit physical dominance over her with regard to a legitimately heavy door, yet at the same time was "into" men literally physically dominating — if not outright abusing — her in bed. As she later scrolled her telephone number on the palm of his hand on his way out the door, she had assured him that while his caveman ways were fine and dandy in the sack, she would have to insist that he respect her 20th-century views, values and persona when in public with her the next time. There would be no next time, he'd already decided, and immediately rubbed her number off his hand the minute he'd hit the street. It was the same hand that was now wrapped gently around Michelle's, he realized with a smile.

He could laugh at it now, but being automatically pigeonholed as a chauvinist pig for having the audacity to practice basic manners had bothered him immensely back then. Granted, he did indeed feel that most men were superior to most women in terms of physical strength, because... well, they just plain were. It was an undeniable, inarguable anatomical fact that women did not possess the same upper-body configuration, hence the strength, of men. Women possessed their own upper-body configuration, one in which Tony had always adored. But in terms of intellectual capacity, never once had he ever perceived women as mentally inferior in any way. He'd simply never been raised to think that way. In fact, throughout his Dad's entire career, some of his most valued right-hand men had been women, and decades before it would eventually become the do-or-get-sued credo of fellow corporate-American CEO's.

After his short-lived hit-and-run romance with the hypocritical bombshell, Tony had suddenly found himself studying his Mom and Dad's interactions whenever he'd come home from college. They'd always struck him as an exceptionally harmonious and devoted couple. He thought about all the times his Dad, for instance, would threaten to kill him anytime he'd ever made his mother cry. Making her cry was an act more egregious than sticking up a liquor store, as far as his Dad was concerned.

Tony had likewise taken note of how his Mom would always religiously take twenty minutes to pretty herself up before his Dad was due home from work: spraying on perfume; changing into something soft and feminine; donning a necklace or bracelet his Dad had given her at one time or another. It was a regimen he couldn't recall her ever having skipped. Not even when she was always so exhausted during those last two hell-months of pregnancy with his sister, when Tony feared she might literally explode if someone were to come within a mile of her with a pin. He'd taken keen notice, as well, of how his Mom had never once balked or hissed when his Dad opened a door for her, or pulled out her chair, or stood up whenever she entered the room — or when any woman entered, for that matter, including the housekeeper. Nor had his Dad ever indicated any intention or desire to dispense with his antiquated caveman ways.

There and then, Tony had made a personal commitment that he, too, would simply continue doing what felt right and came naturally to him, even if it meant that nine out of ten women were predestined to brand him a Neanderthal pig. He wasn't interested in those nine women anyway. He would patiently wait for the tenth.

He gazed over and smiled warmly at his tenth now — his "it" — who'd been walking quietly beside him all the while, thinking whatever she was thinking. He listened to her heels clicking softly and rhythmically against the concrete and gently squeezed the delicate fingers cupped comfortably inside his hand. Michelle looked up and returned his smile with an even warmer one, then went back to pondering God-only-knew-what while he allowed his eyes to linger a few moments longer studying her dress. She had made that dress expressly for his sake, to look pretty for him, it abruptly occurred to him for the first time. The realization set fireworks off inside of him and he suddenly found himself burning to introduce her to his parents; especially to his Dad, whom he already knew would slap him on the shoulder until it was raw for how well he had done for himself.

Michelle could feel his eyes still upon her. She looked back up again with a warm but curious smile this time.

"Should we be holding hands like this?" she asked, momentarily gazing beyond him at the cars whizzing by in the street.

"Yes," he cavalierly answered without missing a beat, exuding a level of self-confidence that made her laugh.

"No, I mean, what if someone from the office drives by and sees us?"

"Screw 'em," he smiled easily, noticing a familiar problem suddenly beginning to arise to the immediate right of the hand sitting in the front pocket of his jeans.

"Honey," she giggled, "we're gonna have to figure out how we want to handle this..."

"Handle what?"

"Us, dear. Our professional lives, for one thing… How we're gonna conduct ourselves in the office and such."

"Like we always do, baby... We're not at the office now, though," he reminded her, squeezing her hand this time with a slight sense of urgency, nudging her toward the alcove of a storefront to their right. "C'mere... I need you to do something for me," he said.

As he tugged her along into the shaded entryway, she quickly conducted a survey of the unique handmade pieces showcased in the windows on either side of them, assuming that he wanted to get her opinion on one item or another. But once inside the alcove, he immediately turned his back to the window instead, leaning against it and pulling her in close to him.

"Honey, what are you doing?" she giggled self-consciously, glancing back and forth between the shop's interior and the cars in the street as his arms wrapped her up in a firm embrace.

"Shush," he ignored her, placing a hand at the back of her head and bringing her cheek into the crook of his neck, then laying his own cheek to rest against her head. "I just wanna do this for a second..." he murmured, closing his eyes and wallowing in the sun-warmed coconut scent wafting up from her hair. It was his coconut scent. He had given that scent to her.

Michelle slid her arms inside his jacket and around his waist, quietly enjoying the tight, almost anxious hold he had on her, contrasted by the easy, gentle sway of his body now rocking barely noticeably from left to right. She moved a hand softly around his lower back, wondering what had compelled him to want to halt so abruptly and hold her so closely like this. She listened to a series of low sighs and sounds percolating at the base of his throat, concluding that he had probably just needed to stop and double-check that she was really there. She understood the feeling well and squeezed her arms a little tighter around his waist, silently complimenting him on his remarkably perfect sense of timing.

"What are you thinking about, honey?" she predictably asked after a blissful minute or two.

"Coconuts," he said quietly, eyes still closed and nuzzling his cheek into the ponytail-ish thing at the top of her head, letting his fingertips lightly stroke a couple of buttons on the back of her dress — his dress.

"The prawn in coconut milk?" she assumed, capitalizing on her uncanny ability to memorize a Thai menu at a glance; two glances in the case of a take-out menu printed in small type.

"Quiet," he replied softly, evoking a giggle from her over the abruptness with which he'd delivered his request. Tony seldom asked for what he wanted, she had noticed long ago; he generally demanded or just took it, whichever served as the easiest or fastest means of achieving his desired result.

He felt her giggling in his arms and smiled with self-deprecation, wholly aware of some of his more infamous social shortcomings, passed down with pride by his grandfather Almeida, who'd possessed even less patience than he.

As more time passed, Michelle was becoming convinced that he was well on his way to catching a quick midday nap on top of her head, until she felt him gather a handful of her ponytail and gently tilt her head back. His expression was warm and serene, but his eyes looked a little pained, she thought, as they had at the breakfast table when he couldn't quite figure out the quantum mechanics of curly hair.

"Kiss me that way again," he said, leaning in to brush his lips against her soft cheek. He loved the sensation it produced, accented by the creamy scent that emitted from her skin. "You know, baby… the way you did it last night. Remember?"

"I kissed you about a thousand times last night," she giggled shyly, suddenly cognizant of the elderly shopkeeper on the other side of the glass door. He had situated himself, hands on his hips, at the center of his store and was glaring at them as though they were holding up a crowd of would-be customers from stampeding through the door and buying him out.

"No, you remember the one," Tony continued anxiously, readjusting her head away from the door, like a puppeteer manipulating his marionette. He planted a brief kiss on her forehead in the hopes it might jar her memory somehow. "When I... that time I said I was so close and you stopped us... remember? And then we were resting for a minute?… The one right after that... Not the neck one, the lip one…"

Michelle remembered but let him go on, maintaining a quizzical look on her face as though still struggling to recall the moment. It thrilled her to know that he had evidently spent time quietly thinking about the kiss he was now hungering for her to recreate.

"You kissed me, like... really sweet and slow. You remember, baby," he insisted again with a growing edge of frustration in his voice, intermingling with a low-level whine.

She felt the shopkeeper's eyes on them again and turned her head slightly to the left, noting that the elderly man's wife had since joined him and was now, much to Michelle's relief, tugging at her husband's sleeve, trying to bring a halt to the international shooing-away gesture he was making with the backs of his hands. Michelle connected with the woman's eyes for a flash just before Tony steered her head back is his direction. He was either oblivious to the shopkeeper's existence, or couldn't care less about what was going on inside. Michelle was willing to bet the farm on the latter.

Quickly repositioning his fingertips at the sides of her temples now, Tony began anxiously demonstrating the kiss he was talking about, cupping his mouth over hers and moving his head in a dreamy side-to-side motion, gently sliding his lips across hers and slowly back again, the way she had done to him. Only she had done it so much better. There was a plumpness about her lips that enabled her to do things that his own lips couldn't begin to duplicate if somebody paid them.

"Ah… yeah. I sort of remember… I think," she smiled against his mouth, taking advantage while his eyes were still closed to catch another segment of the sideshow beyond the glass door. She felt a little embarrassed, actually: A thirtysomething making out in a doorway, like a hot-blooded fifteen-year-old, carried more of a spectacle quality than she really felt comfortable displaying in public.

The low, muffled sounds of a domestic spat, in a language that sounded to her like Italian, began seeping through the heavy glass. The squat little wife was now slapping her husband's forearm with one hand and giving Michelle the international pay-no-attention-to-my-unromantic-husband sign with the other. Michelle didn't even think Tony had noticed her eyes straining to watch the old couple, but without even breaking off his lip-sliding reenactment, or even so much as opening his eyes, he fished his leather-bound C.T.U. identification out of his jacket's right-front pocket and quickly flashed it in the shopkeeper's direction, slipping it back in just as quickly as he had snatched it out.

"Honey!" she said, breaking away from his lip-lock and giggling in amazement. "You're not supposed to do that! Not unless you're acting in an official capacity!"

"C'mon, you remember," he completely ignored her, looking anxiously into her eyes and gearing up for another live demonstration.

"What in the world do you think flashing your badge is going to accomplish anyway?"

"I don't know, honey. Most people just leave at that point… Were you paying attention to that, like, slide-thing? You were moving your lips kinda left to right… Remember?"

"Yes, I remember now, honey. You liked that one. I remember."

He loved that one. He loved every second of the very first time they had made love the night before. But that particular kiss, in that particular way, had thrilled him to the core and kept coming back to him all day. It was even the first thing he'd thought about when he'd awoken earlier on. Michelle had been curled up against him, still out cold and sleeping for another good half-hour longer, so he'd entertained himself by gazing at her and recalling the details of last night as best he could: how she'd asked him to pull over and kiss her; the drive to his apartment, which he still couldn't remember a minute of; the silent ride up the elevator, holding her the way he had just now held her a moment ago. He'd only gotten as far as peeling off his jacket in the living room when he'd somehow found himself resting on top of her in his bed, with no memory of how they'd even gotten there. He had perched himself up on his elbows to ease the pressure of his weight against her, but also to carefully study her eyes.

"Y'sure you're ready for this — to take this step, I mean?" he had asked her, burrowing his fingers into her hair and stroking the tips of his thumbs gently against the delicate rims of her ears. He wanted to know for certain that she was certain about what they were moments away from getting into, but didn't want to know, at the same time, for fear she might suddenly change her mind. But she had looked into his eyes so assuredly when she told him that it was one of the very few things in her life she was totally certain of. She'd then sent his heart instantaneously reeling when she giggled shyly and leaned her warm lips against his ear, bravely confessing that she had long ago created a fantasy of the way she imagined he would make love to her, which she had fine-tuned in her mind over the course of more nights than she could possibly begin to tally.

The idea alone of Michelle lying in her bed fantasizing about him had been enough to cut his breathing capacity in half. He'd invested so much time in trying to conceal his feelings from her that he hadn't allowed himself to think or wonder about where he might be fitting into her dreams. He knew precisely where she fit into his own: To the singular fantasy she had meticulously honed in her mind, he had about forty, most of which he would never have the courage to share with her in a million years. But Michelle had stunned him when she bravely began to tell him all about her own.

So much of those first moments were a blur to him now. Her shy words and quivering touch had thrown him into a deep daze. The next thing he was able to recall was raising himself up and sitting back on his heels to unbutton his shirt, and how she'd gotten onto her knees and gently halted him before he'd even unfastened the first one.

"No... me," she had smiled shyly, taking his wrists and guiding his hands down to rest against his thighs. She wanted to do it herself, she explained, too bashful at that point to say it to his eyes. After having envisioned herself opening his buttons so many times in her dreams, she wanted to make it real, now that she was finally with him, she'd confessed as her cheeks blushed wildly out of control. He had wanted to tell her how incredibly excited and flattered and special her revelation had made him feel, but a heavy moan had gripped the pit of his throat. So he just quietly listened and gazed instead, mesmerized as she courageously ventured onward, demonstrating how she would always undo his buttons starting at the top and ending with his cuffs. He thought about how hard his heart had begun to pound in his chest, and how quickly and thickly his eyes had glazed over, feeling her nervous fingers fiddling with each button in tandem with her shy description of how she had always seen the moment happening.

His hands were trembling against his thighs and he'd rubbed the moisture from his palms before leaning forward to kiss her. But as his lips tried to connect with hers, she had brought him to a gentle halt again.

"No, umm…" she giggled, able to glance shyly at his eyes by then, though only just barely and briefly. "You don't kiss me yet. I, umm... first I slide your shirttails out," she illustrated, slipping them free from their mooring, then placing her quivering hands against his chest.

His heart had alternated between pounding and melting as she'd gone on to timidly demonstrate how she would always then ease her palms slowly down to his stomach, her thumbs following the silky path of hair that led to his belt and beyond. She would slide her palms back up just as slowly, she'd explained with flat hands pressed gently against his skin. She let them slither with excruciating slowness through the thick nest covering his chest, eventually gliding over to skim his hard nipples, watching and feeling them sliding beneath and between her fingertips. His panting steadily grew more pronounced as she eased her hands up to the area she'd described to him as her nemesis — the familiar patch of chest hair that stared out from his shirt at her every day; teasing and taunting her; making her burn to know what the rest of him looked like beneath the fabric that audaciously hid his body from her view.

Her bashful words in synch with her hungry touch had made it impossible for him to keep his breath even or his groans at bay.

"Then what happens, sweetheart..." he had asked her in a labored whisper, unable to find his full voice at that moment. He'd wanted so badly to touch her, but had kept his hands perched where she had positioned them in her dream until she'd described where she would always then see them going, and what he would always do with them next.

He had breathlessly followed as she shyly moved him along through each sensuous step and fine detail of her most private thoughts and wishes. Entrusting him with her secrets had been enough to warm his soul to the core, but sharing them had also enabled him to fulfill his own innermost, aching desire — to know what hers were and to bring them to fruition.

His excitement had heated and elevated to levels he'd never known were attainable until she had begun venturously touching, consuming, and exploring him in ways that had made his brain burn. He had felt his teeth throb and his skin crackle as though she had thrown a switch and electrified it. His hunger to taste and satiate himself in all the warmest and most sacred parts of her body had been fed to the gills; his ability to thrill and tantalize her body with his own had been tested and met a thousand times over as she'd gasped and moaned and whimpered the things she had always wanted from him; where she burned for him to touch and explore her; how she wanted to hear him describe to her certain sensations he felt when she would do this or that to him, or he to her. He'd feverishly granted every little thing she had intimated or asked of him, all the while begging to know what she had envisioned them doing next.

"Tell me," he'd whispered over and over throughout each leg of the extraordinarily intimate, sensually perfect journey she had created for them. "Tell me what you want, baby," he'd softly pleaded at times when her breath had become too labored to speak, or her words too fractured to discern anymore. He had improvisationally filled in the blanks at those junctures, sometimes following wherever her feverish body gestures would steer him; sometimes sensing the things she was thinking and seeking from him; other times knowing precisely the sensations she wanted them to experience together, and at the pace and depth and intensity level he instinctually knew she would want them to feel; each time hungering to deliver every motion and moment to her in the way she had always seen them unfold.

He had reached the point so many times of barely being able to hold it together a moment longer. He ached to fulfill the vision she had breathlessly whispered to him, of how slowly she had always imagined him entering her, just a little at a time. He had paused between every torturously slow injection of his body, allowing hers to savor the sensation each new addition would introduce; moving again a moment later when he'd feel her body clench him tightly, asking for more. His inhibitions had long since left him. He'd allowed himself to cry out from the heat that met and overwhelmed him every feverish inch of the way, and the blissfully agonizing friction that ensued throughout his gradual buildup in pace and force.

When he'd felt himself getting a little too perilously close to the edge at one point and had paused for a moment to pull it together, he'd been surprised to see how apprehensive she'd suddenly become, as though convinced that it was only a matter of seconds before her long-held vision of their mutually climatic moment together was doomed to inevitably shatter into ruination.

"Please wait… Please… I'm so close," she had breathlessly pleaded with him, with a tinge of panic noticeably present in her voice and embrace.

"I know, baby, I can feel you," he'd whispered against her ear in a low, soothing voice, kissing away a tear that had spilled from the corner of her eye; assuring her that he was right there with her; promising that he wasn't going anywhere without her; that he would wait until she was ready for him. It had been only too painfully obvious that her sudden alarm had stemmed from deep-rooted disappointments in her past. The thought of others emotionally abandoning and ignoring her needs upon selfishly satisfying their own had eaten away at him, but it also fortified his resolve to bring her stunningly erotic vision to reality if it killed him in the process. It was their first time — that ever-memorable "first time" that they would never get to have a second shot at — and he wanted it to be perfect for her and for them.

He had gently stroked her hair, somehow maintaining a soothing, calming tone as he made her promise not to worry anymore. He had waited until her words and expressions, and a believable smile had convinced him that her fears had genuinely subsided, then kissed her cheeks and forehead before gathering her back up, tight in his arms. As he'd slowly found and resumed the pace she wanted for them and had set for him, he vowed to himself to hang tough for her. Her shyness juxtaposed with the bravery she'd exhibited, and the exorbitant trust she had placed in him; her exquisite softness and scents; her desire alone for him to make passionate love to her — it had all come together to fuel his masculinity beyond the limits. He'd never felt more virile and potent; his muscles had never felt fuller or strained harder; hormones and blood had never raged or coursed so fast or furiously; his moans and groans and vulnerable whimpers, fitful gasps and emasculating cries had never mass-produced and flowed from his lips so freely or shamelessly.

Where he had found the strength throughout those final moments, or how he had gotten his voice to sound so convincingly confident and controlled, he couldn't even begin to imagine. He must have tapped into a reservoir of strength he'd never even known he possessed or been called upon to unleash before. But someway, somehow, he had managed to make it happen. After that peak moment, when she had buckled hard in his arms and he'd exploded like fire at precisely that second, he wasn't quite sure if his body would ever stop pouring its contents out, or if his violent jerking and trembling would ever cease, or if it would even be possible to eventually shake off the disorientation wreaking havoc with his senses. Gasping hard to regain his breath, still stunned at the level of intimacy they'd shared, he had kissed away a few more tears that had spilled from her eyes, fighting all the while to corral his own.

Oh, good…

Shrewd planning, Almeida, he lambasted himself. He had three more blocks to walk in the condition he had just brilliantly and successfully managed to get himself into; plus, two crazy Italian people yelling at each other on the other side of the glass door, one directing his ire at him, the other directing her sympathy toward Michelle, who couldn't be more fascinated or fixated on the free vaudeville show playing out before her eyes.

He caught the shopkeeper's attention and reached over Michelle's shoulder, pointing across to the corner of the window that seemed most accessible from inside of the store. The shocked shopkeeper halted in mid-swear and bustled over to the window's opening, pointing to an item in the general vicinity that Tony had indicated and giving him the international is-this-the-one? sign. Tony confirmed with a nod of his head as he quickly dug a credit card out of his wallet and held it up to the little stout lady now bustling toward him. As she took the card she squeezed Michelle's arm, saying something in a thick Italian accent about how much Michelle was going to love it, and how fantastic it was going to look on the terrace.

"What did you get?" Michelle asked once the woman had waddled away to ring up the sale.

"I have no idea. Listen, sweetheart, I was gonna tell you the rest of—"

"You don't have a terrace."

"I know, honey. Who cares. Listen, about the end of the story... y'know, about Chris…"

"Do you want me to go in and exchange it for something else before she—"

"No, baby. C'mere," he said, pulling her into him again and feeling her inadvertently bump up against him. She looked at him, peered downward for a moment, then back up again with a frown.

"We have three more blocks to walk, y'know," she informed him, as if he weren't already painfully and acutely aware.

"Yes, honey, that's why God created sports jackets," he impatiently educated her. "But, listen... I was gonna tell ya the rest of the story in the restaurant, but I can't now 'cause of the surprise, so... umm... so anyway, Chris said that you know you're really in love when ya don't use a condom and ya don't care, 'cause if ya catch a deadly disease, ya wanna die, too, 'cause you don't wanna live without her. And then I told you that I love you, and then you said, 'Love you, too,' and then I—"

"Whoa, whoa... whoa... Back—back up, dear. And then you said _what_ to me?" she asked in amazement, having barely comprehended the Chris part of the story, but now much more interested in the second half, which had poured out of his mouth with the speed of a runaway locomotive.

He looked away for a moment, apprehensively darting his eyes around in myriad directions before focusing them back on her again.

"That I love you," he blurted out nervously, but bravely and directly into her eyes. He suddenly felt a little paralyzed, however, and was also sure that his eyes had widened to at least the size of Michelle's, given the excessive amount of air he could suddenly feel rushing against them. He slid both hands into the front pockets of his jeans, primarily to check the degree of mobility he was convinced he had lost in his arms at the precise moment he had let those three words fly. Telling Michelle that he loved her had been so much easier when she was unconscious.

He stared down at her staring up at him, suddenly feeling like he was competing for the gold in some kind of new Olympian category. He glanced away long enough to unintentionally catch the little Italian lady's eye, who immediately began giving him the international you-two-are-going-to-make-beautiful-babies-someday sign, which was pressure he really didn't feel he needed at the moment.

"I, uhh… said it twice, in fact," he decided to add for reasons unknown even to himself. "And I said it before you said, 'Love you, too'... You said it really sweet like that... 'Love you, too,'" he babbled, trying to duplicate her inflection, though not pulling it off very well. "So, umm... anyway, you didn't break the code, or anything... That woman's code… I know you were concerned about that."

He was sweating. Like that was something new. He looked away again. He'd never felt so jittery in his life, not counting the first time he had said those words to her only a scant few hours ago. Nor had he ever sounded so mentally deficient in his life, as best he could recall.

He glanced back at Michelle's still-stunned expression, then turned his attention this time to a hand-painted switch plate in the window that he suddenly wished he had pointed to instead. His mind was racing. It hadn't gone as romantically as he wanted it to, but he'd gotten nervous in the middle. What could he do; he'd choked. These things happen sometimes at important moments like this, he comforted himself. Anyone in his position would've babbled it out just as unromantically and incoherently as he had.

Michelle was still looking somewhat stunned, though appeared to be coming around, he thought. He looked away again, figuring he'd give her another minute or two to absorb the shock of his finally having spit it out, and at a moment when she obviously hadn't expected it. At least he had managed to surprise her, he thought, giving himself credit for that much.

The shopkeeper provided the perfect distraction, hurrying through the door, cheerily waving the credit card and bill. Tony turned back to Michelle, determined to sound cool and in control this time.

"So, umm... you owe me two, by the way, since... y'know... I said it three times so far," he factually informed her, mindlessly clearing his throat as he pulled his paralyzed hands from his pockets.

He took the bill and pen from the shopkeeper, who promptly turned and offered his back for Tony to use as a desk. Michelle still hadn't moved many muscles as of yet, but Tony could see that her face had decidedly softened and was even beginning to take on a warm glow. He hurriedly scribbled his name, removed his copy, and passed the pen and the bill back over the man's shoulder. By now the little wife had joined the party, slinging the handles of a small yellow shopping bag over Michelle's wrist, reiterating how lovely the thing was going to look on the terrace… or the toilet. Tony couldn't be completely sure which.

His nervousness started rapidly diminishing as he watched an enchanting little smile inching its way across Michelle's face. Her eyes were beginning to sparkle a lot more, too, he could clearly see. He shot her a shy, self-conscious smile as he returned the credit card and receipt to his wallet and his hands to his pockets.

"Umm... Also, y'know, if ya wanted to get technical about it," he grinned, feeling appreciably more confident and even a little proud of himself, "I, uhh... I said all three words and you just said two of them... 'Love you'... That's two, not three. Plus, you were unconscious when you said it, while, umm… I, on the other hand, was fully conscious every time."

As her smile grew a little wider, so did his. He watched her drop her head down for a second, then bring it back up to him again, this time with sparkles distinctly and inarguably present in her eyes.

"Y'know, if you really wanted to get technical about things," she said analytically, with a wry smile, "I've loved you longer than you've loved me."

He cocked his head to the side and stared her down for a moment, sporting a grin just as wry as her own.

"I don't think so," he accepted the challenge, marveling at her ability to lighten the moment. It enthralled him the way she could manipulate his feelings like that, bringing him from one end of an emotional spectrum to the other in a flash, and with such great ease. His heart suddenly felt lighter and even safer in her care than it had before. He pulled a hand out of his pocket and reached for her forearm, pulling her a step closer to him. "I loved you about four minutes into meeting you," he stated for the record.

"It only took me two," she wasted no time in countering. "Maybe two and a half. But it definitely wasn't four."

His grin grew a little broader, but he leveled it down a bit.

"Yeah, well, now that I think about it... I fell in love with you when I saw your picture in your transfer file, before you even came in for a meeting."

"Ah..." she smiled, dropping her head and nodding for a moment before raising it up to him again. "Y'know, thanks for reminding me... The file... You're right. I distinctly remember, now, falling in love with you that afternoon you, Mason, and Chappelle were up to see Hammond… which was before I'd even filed for a transfer, if memory serves."

"Oh, I see," he sing-sang facetiously, turning her by the arm and guiding her out of the alcove and onto the sidewalk. "Well, I wasn't sure I ever wanted to tell ya this, 'cause it's a little spooky, but... since you've left me no choice… I fell in love with you when a vision of your face popped into my head in Math class, back in the tenth grade."

"Oh, my God… This is so chilling," she responded with high-sarcasm, pausing to return a wave to the couple who were now back behind the glass door, waving their heartfelt good-byes to her and Tony. "I drew a picture back in the second grade entitled, 'The Man I'm in Love With,' and it was the spitting image of you. It just struck me when you mentioned Math class... God, I have chills now."

Tony smiled and shook his head, then decided to wave at the elderly little couple, too, as long as he was already smiling anyway. Plus, it was only the polite thing to do, and Michelle would expect it of him. He locked eyes with the man and flashed him the international I'm-running-a-little-late-here-buddy-so-do-ya-think-we-can-wrap-this-up-soon sign, watching as the man promptly began steering his wife by the shoulders away from the door.

Tony reclaimed his position on the outside of the sidewalk and took Michelle's hand back into his.

"What's my surprise?" she asked.

"I'm not telling you so don't start," he responded.

"Fine. Then just give me a hint," she cajoled him, feeling her curiosity disease beginning to ail her again. She watched with excitement as he took a moment to think.

"It's better than a picture," he cryptically replied.

"Oh, that helps a lot," she complained.

"Be happy with it, 'cause it's all you're getting," he assured her, fully expecting her to bug him all the rest of the way to the restaurant. But, remarkably enough, she accepted her fate and strolled quietly alongside him up to the corner where they paused to wait for an opening in the traffic.

"Say it again," she smiled up at him with a challenge in her tone, deciding to get back at him by having him all but choke on those three words again. Besides, he definitely needed the practice, she quickly convinced herself as a means of justifying her evil revenge.

"I love you," he said clearly and without hesitation, not only successfully stunning her but himself in the process. It hadn't felt half as scary or nerve-racking to say it this time around, however; probably because he now knew for certain that Michelle officially loved him, too. "That's another one that ya owe me, by the way," he incidentally reminded her. "And you'll notice how all three words were there when I said it. Not two, but three."

She just smiled nonchalantly at the rookie, withholding any official concession or recognition of victory for the time being. She wasn't quite through with him yet, wondering for a moment if keeping those three words to a minimum of two for awhile might not be the perfect way to make him just as crazy as he had made her earlier, when she'd vowed to get him back someday.

The rookie read her mind, despite having insisted only hours earlier that he was wholly incapable of doing so. He chuckled to himself. Poor Michelle. She didn't realize that he never again had to hear her say that she loved him, just as long as he knew that she did. He would play along, however, pretending that it was driving him insane not being able to pry all three words consecutively loose from her mouth. These are the things you do when you're in love, after all. But he would have to come up with an alternate way of getting her back for that picture-she-drew-in-the-second-grade closer if he wished to add another notch to his victory post. He thought for a moment while they waited for the perfect mad-dash opportunity to present itself.

"You're my tenth, y'know," he casually informed her as they darted across the congested boulevard.

"Your tenth what?…" she asked, gripping his hand and keeping pace alongside him. He glanced at her and just smiled, allowing her curiosity to build and intensify. "What does that mean, your 'tenth'?… Tell me, honey…" she insisted, with the beginnings of frustration and brooding formulating in her voice. He gave her another glance and just smiled again.

This was getting way too easy, the rookie chuckled to himself, climbing behind the wheel of his mental formula racecar and firing up the engine for his victory lap.


	8. Her Surprise

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 8: Her Surprise_

After the maitre d' had inquired "Two?" and Tony had answered "Three," Michelle felt it safe to conclude that her surprise was indeed in the form of a human being, just as she had suspected after he'd taken that call in the living room. But only now did she find herself suddenly beginning to feel a little jumpy about making whomever's acquaintance, only a matter of mere minutes away. Her human surprise was obviously somebody significant, like Tony's mother or father, with whom it would be critical for Michelle to make a stellar first-impression.

But the second that Tony's "Three" had made it official, Michelle began to seriously wonder exactly how prepared she really was for so monumentally important and nerve-wracking a meeting. Their earlier conversation about how fast the relationship was moving suddenly felt like the understatement of the century. Michelle wasn't even sure if she was appropriately dressed for the occasion. His father would probably like her dress just as much as Tony had, she hoped, smoothing out some nonexistent wrinkles with the moist palm of her free hand. But she wasn't at all confident that it qualified as appropriate MeetingTheMother-wear. If she'd had access to her closet, Michelle would have definitely selected something a bit more serious and sophisticated than a flower-infested handmade frock, replete with a crookedly stitched shoulder strap and at least one noticeably lame buttonhole.

Tony sensed her anxiety and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, smiling over the excessive moisture coating her palm and rubbing off on his own.

"Relax, honey. I'm just gonna introduce you as my colleague for now," he apologetically forewarned her. "Trust me. It'll be better this way… You'll see what I mean."

"Whatever you think is best, dear," Michelle smiled gratefully, immediately feeling immense pressure lifting up from her shoulder straps. No one knew the dynamics of the Almeida family better than he, after all, so she resigned herself to simply relaxing, following his lead, and doing her best to make a decent impression. If whomever she was meeting liked her as Tony's colleague, she'd already have a foot in the door when the time came to reintroduce her as the future daughter-in-law — should that day ever come, good Lord willing.

It was an amazingly short period of time before Tony had commandeered a table originally reserved for another party, rattled an order off to the wine steward, and all but begged the head waiter for "a bunch of different appetizer-sorta-things on the biggest platter they've got back there and as fast as humanly possible." Michelle watched as he now contentedly popped them into his mouth, two at a time, while scrutinizing the menu like a death row inmate deciding on his last meal as a mortal.

"I just needed to get something on the table fast, honey," he explained to her after the husky, empathetic waiter had dashed off to the kitchen and returned at record-breaking guy-speed. "We can order some other stuff, too, if you want."

"I already have what I want," she grinned flirtatiously, finding his knee under the table.

"Don't start, woman," he softly chuckled, knowing that the last thing he needed right now was another ill-timed surge of excitement, with you-know-who about to enter the restaurant at any minute.

"What are you trying to decide between?" Michelle smiled warmly, leaning in a little closer to Tony's menu, thinking she might be able to help him narrow the field down a bit.

"The left page and the right," he murmured, deeply engrossed. Michelle recalled all the food he had consumed at breakfast and wondered why he didn't weigh at least four-hundred pounds.

"Where the hell is that wine?" Tony mumbled, sounding more like he was issuing an assignment than asking a question. Michelle glanced over at the bar across from her, which spanned the entire length of the wall. Sitting side-by-side amid the rapidly growing Happy Hour crowd of predatory singles were two women, one of whom was busily alternating between trying to catch Tony's attention and flinging if-looks-could-kill daggers at Michelle.

"Honey?"

"Hmm…?"

"Do you know that woman at the bar, with the long blonde hair?" she asked, originally tempted to add "with the ample breasts spilling out of the top of the tight pink sweater that looks like it took a minimum of two people to shoehorn her into," but deciding at the last second not to go there.

"Uhh… she used to live in the building a few years back, baby," he said uncomfortably, without even looking up to see which woman Michelle was referring to. He didn't have to; he had recognized Pink Sweater while scanning the room for FBI most-wanteds. It was an occupational hazard and a routine procedure he always conducted upon entering a public establishment. Pink Sweater, in fact, had been his primary reason for commandeering the reserved table, which was further away from the bar than any of the other empty tables.

Keeping his eyes glued to the menu, Tony found Michelle's hand and guided it up to his lips. He tenderly kissed her fingers, then laid her hand, inside his own, conspicuously and squarely on top of the table and in full view of Pink Sweater. Michelle watched the woman promptly respond with a disappointed scowl and a double-dagger shot this time before turning her back in a defeated huff.

Michelle got the picture and gently squeezed Tony's hand in quiet recognition of the gallant, subtle, and even gentle way in which he had gone about effectively cutting Pink Sweater off at the pass.

It didn't come as any big surprise to Michelle that a woman would recognize Tony and attempt to rekindle their acquaintance, even in so aggressive a manner. He had lived in the neighborhood for a number of years and was a single, eligible, and exceptionally handsome man, after all, whom no woman in her right mind was likely to forget, or give up pursuing, any time soon. But not until a second showdown came to pass did Michelle begin to wonder if fending off incoming eye daggers was destined to become a hobby, whether she wanted one or not.

"I think the wine is on its way," she reported, now watching her second contender — a very young, very attractive waitress — overly exaggerate the sway of her hips as she approached their table with an ice bucket lovingly cradled in her arms. Her early-twentysomething eyes were locked dead on Tony, but she somehow managed to pry them loose just long enough to glance at Michelle in horror, as if wondering what a handsome man like him could possibly see in such an aged early-thirtysomething frump like her.

Positioning herself at Tony's side, the young waitress laid the bucket down with a loud, attention-demanding clunk. Failing to receive a reaction from Tony, she then proceeded to go about the more important business of stooping over and aiming her ample cleavage directly in his line of vision, with all the subtly of a starving gorilla perched to pounce on an unsuspecting banana.

"Yeah, that's good," Tony murmured without bothering to look up, appearing more interested in the menu than the wine bottle's label or the contents of young Cleavage's blouse.

Strike one, Michelle inwardly thought as she outwardly gloated, feeling Tony's hold gently tighten around her hand in an obvious attempt to send the young woman a gentle and subtle message. Cleavage reacted with disappointment, though didn't appear the least bit put-off or deterred, straightening back up and hastily uncorking the bottle now.

"Don't I remember you from Denny Cahill's party a year or so ago?" she boldly purred onward.

Her direct question left Tony little choice but to reluctantly look up this time, at which point Cleavage immediately thrust the wine back into the ice and stooped herself over again, provocatively rolling the bottleneck back and forth between her palms in a manner that would make a veteran streetwalker blush.

"Oh, uhh… yeah… Hi. How've ya been?" Tony inquired politely enough, then promptly returned his focus to the menu.

"A little lonely, actually, but I'm, uhh… beginning to feel a little better now," Cleavage shamelessly cooed, briefly glancing at Michelle, curious to see how much of a sweat she had succeeded in working up in the old bag thus far.

"Have you ever considered getting a cat?" Michelle mock-innocently offered, immediately feeling Tony's foot kicking hers lightly under the table as he lowered his head closer to the menu, obviously struggling to squelch a smile.

Ignoring the old battle-ax, Cleavage wrapped her fingers suggestively around the bottleneck, this time quickly, steadily, and seductively grinding the wine bottle up and down inside the ice, creating a familiar rhythmic sound and capturing the attention of a number of male patrons. Michelle's eyebrows arched up. Touché, she thought to herself, filing the ice-humping move in her memory banks with every intention of using it on Tony at some later time. It would either crack him up with laughter or compel him to sexually assault her on the floor of whatever room they were in, either outcome of which would be just fine with Michelle.

Undaunted by Cleavage's relentless moxie and stubborn determination, Tony casually turned his attention to Michelle, gently stroking his thumb back and forth against her fingers tucked snuggly in his hand.

"Umm… sweetheart?" he said warmly into her eyes, allowing his low voice to noticeably morph into a softer, smokier tone. "This is… umm…" He turned and glanced over his shoulder, addressing Cleavage with a quizzical frown. "…Kathleen, is it?"

"Catherine," Cleavage chafed, still mystified as to why a guy as sexy as Tony Almeida would want to waste his time with a decrepit early-thirtysomething when he could just as easily have her early-twentysomething self instead.

"Catherine… Right… Sorry about that, Catherine," he replied unconvincingly, returning his undivided attention to Michelle. "Honey, this is…"

"Hi," Cleavage irritably snapped, conveying her distinct disinterest in exchanging pleasantries with the senior citizen to whom she had already lost enough ground as it was. She impatiently poured a taste-test into Tony's wine glass.

"Umm… You can just leave that, Kathleen. I'll take care of…"

"Catherine!" she icily corrected him again, further galled by the smug smile now plastered across the ancient one's face. "Ready to order?" she barked, whipping her pad and pen out from her apron's waistband, with all the obsequious courtesy and charm of a police officer preparing to write out a summons.

"Note quite yet, Kath… Cath… Not quite yet, but could you, umm… tell me what this is?" Tony asked, pointing down at the menu item in question, knowing that Cleavage would have to stoop over in order to read it, which would angle her cleavage directly at Michelle this time. It was all Tony could do to keep a straight face when Michelle nearly spit her half-chewed appetizer across the table and promptly declared under-table warfare on his foot.

Once Cleavage had finally marched off in an indignant huff, Tony proudly congratulated himself for his exceptionally keen sense of geometric trajectory angles, which also came in handy when shooting pool and criminals.

"I don't even have to assure you that I never went out with her, do I?" he asked, grateful though not surprised that Michelle had handled the entire discomfiting episode with grace, class, and a good sense of humor.

"That's obvious, dear," she smiled, translating his guy-code to mean that he had never slept with the child. "You'd still be in jail if you had."

"Promise to explain to me someday why women even do stuff like that," he said, punctuating his dismay with a brief glance back in Cleavage's direction, almost inadvertently catching Pink Sweater's eye in the process, which would've been disastrous. She'd have definitely seized the opportunity to dash right over, he knew, undoubtedly addressing him at one point or another as "Mighty Joe," therein arming Michelle with sufficient ammo to gleefully torture him for the rest of his life.

New restaurants, he thought: they always attracted every last soul on the singles' circuit like vampires to blood. This is what he got for suspending lockdown and leaving the apartment.

"She's flirting with me right in front of you, like you weren't even alive," he continued in amazement. "I mean… what's to be gained by doing that?"

"It's a queen-of-the-jungle type thing," Michelle explained. "Sort of like the showdowns young alphas have with the leader of the lion den. Only a slightly cattier version of it."

"Geeziz, I mean… did she think I was gonna pretend to go to the men's room so I could sneak off and get her number, or something? That's the part I really don't get…"

"Stranger things have been known to happen, dear," Michelle said with a small smile in a way that compelled him to wonder if she might be speaking from a painful past experience. Now seemed like a good time to pour some wine and steer off the subject altogether.

"Hey," he smirked, nodding down at the yellow shopping bag on the floor between them, "how come you're not itching to see what we bought?"

We bought… His reaction to his own words had surprised him. There was something kind of warm and homey-feeling about it, he thought, imagining for a moment what it would feel like to hear "the house we bought" and "the car we bought" coming out of his mouth some day.

"Oh, my God," Michelle responded with a start, briefly fearing for her sanity as she mentally kicked the tires of her internal snoop-activator. First the band-aid box slipup; now this. She briefly wondered which type of specialist she may eventually have to consult if, heaven forbid, the problem persisted.

But no sooner had she leaned down to grab the handles of the shopping bag when her eyes froze upon the sight of yet another woman across the room heading straight for their table, eyes firmly locked none too surprisingly on Tony. This was becoming a little ridiculous, Michelle thought at first. But as the stunning enchantress continued her graceful approach, Michelle noticed something distinctly different in Tony's behavior: His head was buried in the menu, as usual, but his hand was suddenly nowhere to be found. For a fleeting moment Michelle wondered if, unlike Pink Sweater and Cleavage, maybe she had something to be worried about this time.

It was impossible not to notice her exceptional beauty, even from all the way across the room. The enchantress's features were traffic-stopping; breathtaking; startling to the point that a conspicuous hush fell over the room as she gracefully sidled and zigzagged her way through the sea of tables, on feet that didn't seem to feel a need to connect with the floor beneath them. History's most renowned renaissance masters would've crawled across cut glass to chisel her rare level of beauty into stone for the ages. Never had Michelle herself been rendered quite so awestruck by such an exquisite and artistic vision of human perfection. The woman's eyes alone were so magnetically intense in their cat-like shape and smoldering density that it was difficult to focus in on them clearly.

Forget supermodels: This was the stuff Greek tragedies and waged wars were made of.

This was Olivia L. H. Almeida. The closer she neared, the more unmistakable the family resemblance became, although, oddly enough, Olivia's features were more dissimilar to Tony's than not. His were masculine and hers delicate, of course, but it was clearly apparent to Michelle that Tony must strongly resemble one parent while Olivia more strongly resembled the other. It gave her pause to wonder just how extraordinarily attractive Tony's parents must be in order to have turned out such exceptionally striking offspring. She made a mental note to mercilessly bug him later that evening until he dragged out some family photos.

Arriving at the empty chair across from Tony's, Olivia turned toward Michelle and flashed her a wide, blindingly white smile that seemed to consist of a hundred teeth, accompanied by a genuinely warm and sincere "Hi" in a delicate, whispery voice. But Olivia's expression immediately transformed on a dime, from sprightly and effervescent to tepid and intolerant, the second she focused back on Tony. He still hadn't bothered to say hello at this point. In fact, he had barely even acknowledged her presence, except to mumble for her to sit down.

So fixated on the arresting entrance, Michelle hadn't even noticed the short little stocky sixtysomething man who had puffed through the restaurant directly on Olivia's heels. He pulled out the chair to the right of Michelle and across from Tony, then deftly pushed the sixteen-year-old down into it, using the palm of his hand against the top of her shoulder. Michelle quickly glanced over to gauge Tony's reaction to the man's manhandling of his sister and was surprised to find him completely undaunted. In fact, not even Olivia herself appeared the least bit ruffled or nonplussed by the man's unorthodox seating procedure. It was as if Tony would've seated Olivia the very same way, had he been the one to escort her to the table instead.

"When you're told to sit down, ya sit the hell down, twerp," the little man snarled, pointing a stubby finger directly in Olivia's face, like a father at his wit's end with a belligerent daughter.

"Bite me," Olivia suggested in her whispery voice, flashing a comical 360º eye roll in Michelle's direction. Tony's brow immediately furled, shooting a warning shot at Olivia as he arose from his chair.

"How's it goin', Tone?" the little man smiled as Tony wrapped his arms snuggly around him, exchanging a series of backslaps and bear hugs.

"Good, Lou. How's Ann Marie doing?" he asked, reseating himself and settling back into a casual cross-legged slump.

"I'm headin' over there now so Carmella can get home. She's been up there with the kid all day… Hey, you know kids, Tone. They ain't too particularly fond of hospitals," Lou said, gesturing toward Olivia with a few animated points of his thumb. "Remember this one, when she had to get her tonsils out? Holy geeziz!"

"Michelle…" Tony said, turning toward her, chuckling over the reminder of Olivia's legendary hospital stay, which he was certain the pediatric staff was still reeling from even ten years later. "This is Lou Mongelli... Lou, Michelle Dessler, my colleague..."

"How ya doin', sweetheart," Lou boomed with a warm smile, stooping across the length of the table to crush Michelle's fingers in a firm handshake. "Ya work with this mook at that C.U.T. place… with all them computers? Ya must be one smart cookie… Me? I can't stand them things," he prattled on, as if he had known her for twenty years. "I can't even do that e-mailer business without them things making me feel stupid."

"Oh, they can make me feel pretty stupid at times, too," Michelle giggled, genuinely charmed by Lou's warmth and innate lovableness, though still wincing in pain from his beefy grip.

"Don't mind me. I'm nobody… I'm dead… I'm just here 'til the coroner swings by to make the pickup," Olivia bristled, directing her surly sarcasm solely at Tony as she reached over and gently anchored Michelle's wrist with one hand while prying Lou's grip loose with the other. "You're gonna break something, for cryssake!" she snarled at him with a whine so similar to Tony's that Michelle had to consciously halt herself from laughing aloud.

Olivia seemed delighted by Michelle's response, flashing her an empathetic look as if to say, "I feel so sorry for you that you have to actually work with my disgusting brother… Eeeeew!"

"Nice outfit you're almost wearing," Tony muttered disapprovingly, still not bothering to make eye contact.

Granted, Olivia's physical beauty was timeless and ageless: the sprightliness and vibrancy of youth commingling with the sultriness of a classic vixen made it difficult at first glance to determine if she was sixteen or thirty-six. But her edgy clothing, what very little there was of it, quickly gave her youth away. Only a teenager could pull off showing that much bare skin in broad daylight. Between the black stretchy midriff tightly bound across her breasts and the gravity-defying low-slug jeans, Michelle felt certain that the restaurant would qualify for a Vice Squad raid if Olivia were to so much as raise her hand up to wave.

"Hey, I'm sorry about that, Tony," Lou said in a booming voice, with an accent that unquestionably hailed from the Bronx. He quickly snatched the paper bag he had parked on the table and held it up in evidence. "She done another quick change in the backseat. By the time I caught her in the rearview, it was too late already… I swear, Tone, ya take your eyes off this one for just a second and…"

"Not your fault, Lou," Tony responded, pausing to turn and dead-eye Olivia, who stared back as if he were speaking aloud to her in words. After a moment of listening to his eyes, she responded to his telepathic berating by petulantly slumping down in her chair, crossing her arms, and pouting as though humiliated by having been chastised in front of Michelle, a perfect stranger.

Michelle was as equally amused as intrigued by the Almeida's mode of communication. She and her brother Danny used to share their own language when they were kids, but it was a pig Latin-type language that was communicated verbally. The Almeida siblings, on the other hand, seemed only to need their eyes to transmit their rancorous comments to each other.

"Any injuries?" Tony asked, calmly returning his attention to Lou.

"Nah, this guy in a Beemer swerved when she flashed him, but he didn't hit nothin'," Lou replied. Tony shot another look over at Olivia, this time opting to speak audibly.

"When are ya gonna knock that off, Olivia?" he asked in a surprisingly calm and controlled voice. "Before or after ya put a family of four in the hospital someday?"

"I don't flash families," Olivia sighed deeply and obstinately, wondering when, if ever, her lunkheaded brother was ever going to get her personal flashing preferences straight in that cement-for-brains cranium he called a head.

"Your Pop said to go get the windows tinted, but I just ain't had time, Tony. I'm sorry, man," Lou apologized profusely.

"Don't be ridiculous, Lou. You've got Ann Marie in the hospital, for cryssake. Do it when you get the chance. No rush," Tony reassured him sympathetically. "What've ya got?"

Lou perched his reading glasses, which looked like his wife's, on the end of his bulbous nose and began hurriedly flipping through the pages of his battered little notebook.

"…'kay… lessee… lessee… Here we go. Saturdee… Same garbage, really, Tone… Cigarettes, of course…" he said, pausing to dig an opened pack out of the pocket of his rumpled suit jacket and tossing them into Tony's cupped hands. "That Gerald freak is the one who keeps slipping 'em to her, I know it…"

"He's not a freak," Olivia huffed in defense of her beloved boyfriend.

"Fourteen calls. The ususal suspects… Two of them to that Gerald freak," Lou continued, ignoring the girl's indignant objection to the use of the word. The shoe fit. What could he say.

"Pills?" Tony was almost afraid to ask.

"Nah, turned out she was gettin' them offa that 'net,' but I smashed her top-lap, like your old man said," Lou casually waved Tony's concerns away. "And Miss Marple's been with her every minute that I ain't been around, so…"

"Maddigan,.. Mrs. Maddigan," Olivia corrected him with another overly dramatic eye roll in Michelle's direction. "And how many times do I have to tell you… laptop, not top-lap… Geeziz!"

"Whatever. The old broad sticks like glue to the twerp, Tone," Lou continued. "Army, retired. She's good. Checks all her pockets. Tosses that freak Gerald while she's at it, too. Takes his car apart… The whole nine yards. So he don't even bother tryin' to slip her nothin' no more. He's scared to death of the old broad," Lou chuckled, squinting through the glasses at the back of his list. " … Lessee, lessee… Yeah, okay. Cheeseburger, fries, shake… I counted seventeen fries, but I was doin' about sixty at the time, so I'm probably off by a few. Ya can't never get a good read unless you're bumper-to-bumper…"

"Close enough," Tony assured him.

"I'm comin' in at 900, maybe 930 calories, give or take…" Lou estimated as best he could, checking the flip side of the list to be sure he'd forgotten anything.

"Geeziz," Olivia sighed dramatically, rotating her entire head this time. "I ate the dead cow for you people, all right? Geeziz, what do I have to do to get you cretins off my back!"

"Put on ten pounds and keep it there," Tony snapped, deliberately injecting a little extra harshness into his tone. "That's all you have to do to get your life and your freedom back, Olivia. Tell me when you'd like me to explain that to you another hundred times, huh?"

Olivia slumped deeper into her seat, angrily crossing her arms over her skeleton-like rib cage and assuming yet another sulky pout. It was inarguably the most photogenic pout Michelle had ever seen in all her years of flipping through French Vogue, the covers of which Olivia L. H. Almeida was quite obviously never going to be permitted to grace unless and until she finally retired her purging practices for good. There were hardened inmates being monitored by armed prison guards with less frequency and scrutiny than Olivia was evidently receiving on a 24/7 basis, Michelle thought, sneaking a quick glance at Tony.

"Check the backseat?" he rhetorically asked Lou, wishing he could reach under the table and give Michelle's knee a reassuring squeeze. He missed touching her and felt so isolated from her with Olivia sitting right there. He suddenly ached to be back at the apartment, snuggling with Michelle on the couch, watching The Guns of Navarone and yelling at her not to talk during the movie as he knew in his bones she was going to do.

But he resisted the temptation to try to make any kind of physical connection under the table. He didn't dare give Olivia even an inkling that he and Michelle were more than colleagues grabbing a bite on a working Saturday. If Olivia found out the truth of the matter, she'd be on the phone in a flash with his Mom, who'd be calling him six times a day thereafter, drilling him like a seasoned terrorist interrogator for information about the relationship. Amanda Almeida was at that age, unfortunately for her late-thirtysomething son, where the only thing she wanted in life was grandchildren, just like virtually all of her girlfriends had been cheerily collecting for years.

"Of course I checked the backseat. Whaddaya think, I was born yesterdee?" Lou responded in dismay. "Don't worry, Tone. Ya could bring the forensics boys in and they wouldn't find nothin' back there, I can guarantee ya… _And why is that?"_ Lou turned and sarcastically asked Olivia, who responded by slowly cocking her head at Michelle and crossing her eyes to make her laugh.

"'Cause if I ever find anything between them seat cushions back there," she answered, mockingly imitating Lou's thick Bronx accent, "I'll ram it right down your scrawny little throat, cigarette butts and all, ya lil' twerp.'"

Much to Olivia's delight, Michelle pinched her lips hard and turned her head away from Tony, obviously fighting to conceal her laughter from her colleague. There was something about this curly-headed lady's style that Olivia definitely liked. Her disgusting brother always took himself so seriously, but this Michelle lady was much more laid-back, although in a somewhat stiff kind of way.

But unbeknownst to Olivia, what was really striking Michelle the funniest at this point was the distinct similarity between Lou's detailed report and the classic verbal preliminary that fresh-from-the-field CTU agents submitted to their superiors just before sitting down for a formal debriefing. This segment of the family campaign to monitor Olivia's eating disorder was Tony's contribution to the effort, without a doubt. It was a rather clever plan, Michelle had to hand it to him: Suffocating a freedom-loving sixteen-year-old, every minute of her every day, with a monitoring system more intensive than a suspected criminal would normally receive from an FBI surveillance unit, certainly provided impetus enough for a teenager to modify her behavior in exchange for getting her life back.

"How long ago did she eat," Tony continued his questioning wholly and solely for Olivia's benefit, who couldn't be more chagrined to be constantly referred to in the third person as if she weren't even present.

"Ehh… keep her away from the can another twenty minutes and you're good," Lou guesstimated, consulting his watch. "That freak Gerald ain't pickin' her up for another hour, so it ain't like there's gonna be anything left to puke up at that point."

"I don't know about Gerald driving her home," Tony said with a wince, rubbing his forehead while second-thinking that segment of the operation. He was convinced that he and Michelle were going to end up performing that task, after all was said and done, which was going to destroy the better part of their early evening together. He had already composed a long mental list of the ways he planned to ravage her until it was dark enough to grab his M&M's and fire up "The Guns."

"Ehh, don't worry about it, Tone. 'Miss Marple' will be at the house by then. Not even that freak Gerald's stupid enough to sneak the kid pills or cigarettes when that broad's on patrol. She'll sic the cops on him, Tone, I ain't kiddin' ya. That broad don't mess around and the freak knows it."

"She's a walking violation of my civil rights, as are you, Louis," Olivia complained bitterly.

Not until Michelle heard the name "Louis" did it occur to her that Lou must be the same driver who'd delivered Olivia L. H. Almeida, and after whom she'd been given her middle name, as Tony had earlier mentioned in his brief rundown of Olivia's M.O.

"You ain't got no rights as long as you're living under your old man's roof," Lou reminded her with a snarl, his face instantly transforming into an animated smile as he glanced back and forth between Tony and Michelle. "That's what I tell my girls all the time. My Louisa, she says to me the other day, 'I'm gonna get me a lawyer and sue you, Daddy!'" Lou laughed heartily. "Kids today, I swear… I tell my girls, 'You got the right to remain silent. Period.'"

"Got time for a bite, Lou?" Tony chuckled warmly, genuinely entertained by Lou's wit and delivery. It was more than evident to Michelle that he thoroughly adored the little man. She wondered exactly how long Lou had been with the family, jotting the question down on her mental must-know list.

"Nah, I gotta get outta here before my Carmella meets some sexy young doctor and throws me the hell out," Lou joked, tearing the slip of paper from the notepad and stepping up to Tony's side. He neatly folded and stuffed the paper into the breast pocket of Tony's shirt, then buttoned it, like a Mother Hen, before landing a he-man slap against Tony's chest with a dull thud.

"You be sure to tell Ann Marie that I'm thinking about her, okay?" Tony reminded him.

"Ya kidding me?" Lou chuckled. "That kid's got such a crush on you, she'd fall right outta the hospital bed if I told her that, Tone. I'd be payin' for two busted legs instead of one. Them damn orthopedic doctors… they rob ya blind, I swear. What a racket them guys are runnin'…"

Michelle watched Lou stoop in a little closer, obviously intending to leave Tony with a few guy-to-guy departing words. She immediately ratcheted up the volume on her internal snoop controls and covertly leaned in to overhear.

"Colleague, my ass," Lou chuckled slyly, giving Tony's chest another he-man slap of approval. "Don't worry. The Duchess ain't gonna hear about it from me, kid," he promised, referring to Tony's mother, as best Michelle could surmise. She momentarily panicked, hoping that "The Duchess" was only a nickname and not a real title, promptly adding that question to the very top of her must-know list.

Lou straightened back up and turned to Michelle. "Nice meetin' ya, Melissa. Don't let this mook work ya too hard, y'hear?"

"It's 'Michelle,'" Olivia snidely corrected him as he reapproached her, threatening to personally put her in the hospital bed next to Ann Marie's if she gave "Miss Marple" any trouble tonight.

"Bite me, Louis," Olivia strongly recommended, watching as he waddled away and ignoring the predictable ensuing chewing-out she immediately received from her brother's eyeballs.

Tony reached for the wine bottle to freshen Michelle's glass, convinced that her head must be reeling by now from the overload of insanity spiraling around her.

"Sorry about that, sweetheart," he mindlessly muttered.

Olivia's eyes shot up as Tony's sealed shut in disbelief at the spectacular blunder he'd just committed.

"Well, my, my, my," Olivia cooed gleefully after the initial shock had worn off. She glanced back and forth in astonishment between her disgusting brother and Michelle. Tony's eyes slowly opened again, immediately turning to Michelle for help.

"Excuse me. I think I'll be going to the ladies room now," Olivia shot out of her seat, bubbling with sheer delight, hardly believing her good fortune. She could already feel her life beginning to take a dramatic turn for the better, now that the cards had suddenly and miraculously fallen right into her delicate little extortionist hands. It felt like she had just won the zillion-dollar lottery the way the sardonic laughter had so rapidly built itself up inside her, begging for release, like Mt. Vesuvius just itching to blow.

"Sit down, Olivia," Tony scowled sternly, catching her by the wrist as she breezed past him en route to the ladies room, hoping enough time still remained to purge a few of those cheesburger calories before they had a chance to turn into nourisment.

Tony glanced helplessly at Michelle again, still rubbing his forehead in disbelief. She smiled weakly, arching her eyebrows and lightly shrugging her shoulders. She wanted to comfort him, but feared that Olivia may very well have him over a barrel. She knew that Tony wouldn't allow Olivia to start purging again in exchange for her silence — that he would fess up to his mother himself before he'd let Olivia start calling his shots. But his ultimate desire was to have the best of both worlds: to somehow effectively disarm Olivia while still keeping The Duchess in the dark about his relationship with Michelle.

"What's that you say? You want me to give Mom a call?" Olivia asked the hand that was wrapped around her wrist.

Tony shot another desperate look at Michelle, whose mind was now racing madly to come up with a foolproof counterattack. But all she could think of on the spot was the name of an LAPD detective who worked Narcotics and owed Tony a favor. Pills… Gerald… 'Miss Marple' threatening to call the cops… Who knew? Maybe it was foundation enough for Tony to take and build upon.

"Uhh… I know this is a strange time to bring this up, honey, but I've been forgetting all day to tell you that your friend Pete called around noon… Pete Abernathy? He said you would know what it was about, and that you could reach him at… _work_, I think he said."

Tony's eyes sparkled.

"Uhh… thanks, honey. I'll call him back in a second," he said, fishing his cell phone out of his jacket pocket as he tugged Olivia down by the wrist, seating her sidesaddle on his lap.

A hush fell over the room again, with essentially every male in the place wishing he were Tony at the moment. A flash of pastel caught the corner of Michelle's eye. Pink Sweater had evidently had all she could take and was stomping toward the door now, full steam ahead. Searching around for Cleavage, Michelle finally located her standing frozen in the middle of the restaurant with a full tray of entrées on her shoulder, trying to figure out if she was being out-foxed by a teensomething or a twentysomething, and why on earth Tony would want an old hag like Michelle as part of their ménage à trois.

"Before ya put in that call to Mom, why don't ya get hold of Gerald first?" he counter-threatened Olivia. "Ask him how much he's gonna enjoy being escorted downtown, in an unfortunate case of mistaken identity, and cavity-searched by an LAPD buddy of mine who owes me a favor, big-time… like, the second I find out you've so much as breathed one word about this to Mom?"

Watching the profile of Olivia's perfectly sculptured jaw drop like a rock, Michelle immediately and proudly flashed the rookie a congratulatory nod. He had more than earned this one.

"You can't do that to Gerald," Olivia scoffed, calling her ugly brother's bluff. "That would be illegal."

"I wasn't planning on going by the book," Tony dead-eyed her with a hardened poker face. He had no intention of going through with his threat, as he and Michelle both knew, but as long as Olivia believed otherwise, she would have no choice but to hand all four aces back over to him.

"You wouldn't dare!" she called his bluff a second time.

"Are ya sure about that?" Tony asked, offering the cell phone to her again. "Why don't we ask Gerald if he'd like to find out how daring I'm willing to get when some sixteen-year-old little snothead thinks she can hold a gun to my head?"

Olivia stared him dead in the eye. Tony stared back, holding his ground. A pimply young busboy fresh from the kitchen dropped a full tray of glasses and quickly began negotiating with Satan to trade places with Tony for just one minute, after which time he would happily turn his soul over to the dark side.

Tony continued to stare Olivia down until she eventually relented. She wrestled her wrist away, got onto her feet again, and dragged herself back over to her chair, plopping into it with a forlorn pout that would compel Francesco Scavullo to rise up from his grave and start lighting her. Olivia was beside herself. She couldn't believe she had just witnessed the richest, ripest blackmail material she had ever possessed slide right through her fingers, like a fistful of jello.

Tony was right, Michelle thought: This was much better than a picture. This was a movie. She reached under the table and gave Olivia's leg a few comforting pats.

"Nothing against you, Michelle," Olivia turned and assured her, apologetically. "My Mom would never torture you, of course. Just… _him_," she explained, spitting "him" out of her mouth as though it were the crudest pejorative utterable. "You're the only good thing about this entire insufferable, intolerable day…"

Michelle smiled warmly.

"Do you, like, really, actually work with… him?" Olivia cringed, wrinkling her exquisitely sculptured nose in disgust at the mere thought of it. "Or was that whole 'colleague' thing just a ruse to throw me off the trail?"

"I work _for_ him, actually. Yeah," Michelle confirmed.

"Eeeew!… How can ya possibly stand it?" Olivia begged to know.

"Ahh, he's really not so bad… once ya get used to the smell," Michelle grinned. Tony cocked his head to the side, glaring across at both of them.

"If you two are done," he said, picking up his menu again, "do ya think we can order something before I die of hunger over here?… Geeziz…"

Michelle obligingly opened her menu and moved it toward Olivia so they could peruse the entrées together. Olivia appeared more than a little surprised, as did Tony, since eating was obviously the last thing Olivia had any intention of doing. Michelle knew that, but nevertheless pointed to the middle of the right-hand page.

"See this?… This vegetarian curry?" she said. "Take the word of a former fatso. If you were to eat this four times a day for two weeks straight, you'd end up losing weight, not gaining it."

Olivia stared at her suspiciously, in disbelief. Tony buried his head back into his menu, keeping his ears tuned in on the two of them.

"Y'know, one of the biggest fallacies in the world is that supermodels starve themselves to look that way, when actually they don't at all," Work-Michelle began laying out the facts in a warm, easy-going, conversational manner. "Not the smart ones, anyway… Y'know Christy Turlington, for instance? Eats like a pig. Six times a day. Never misses a meal, she says. The new French Vogue has this whole long interview…"

"How is that possible?"

"It just depends on what you eat and when you eat it, etcetera. You just have to learn it, like any other subject you take in school… like adding another math class to the curriculum."

Olivia still wasn't sure she was buying the preposterous notion. The thought of eating that much food and still losing weight was a bit much for a dedicated purger to swallow.

"Read the article," Michelle said, reading her mind. "Those pills?… Turlington says they kill your skin. She goes on and on about it for, like, six or eight paragraphs. She says take those pills for two months straight and your natural glow? Forget it… It's gone."

"She says that?"

"Read it. It's on the stands. I just picked mine up on Thursday… So, anyway, listen," Work-Michelle offered. "Tell me what ya think about this…You order the curry and first see if you even like it. If you don't, you don't eat it. And if you do, but you still don't trust what I'm telling you, I'll go to the ladies room with you and help ya chuck it up afterwards."

Tony was just about to leap in and reiterate the rules at that point, but decided to keep his mouth shut and his eyes on his menu instead, flabbergasted by the interest Michelle had already been able to raise in Olivia, and with the easy, relaxed way she was managing to communicate with her.

Olivia glanced over at Tony in shock, wondering why he wasn't screaming on the heels of Michelle's offer, or barely even paying any attention to their conversation.

"What about… y'know…?" Olivia turned back to Michelle and queried, bobbing her head a few times in Tony's direction.

"Him?" Michelle replied, imitating Olivia's exaggerated emphasis on the "him" word. "What's he gonna do? Shoot me? I'm an agent, too. I have a gun…. Plus, I'm a better shot."

"You're not a better shot, Michelle," Tony muttered in a low voice, keeping his eyes on the menu but feeling the need to keep the record straight. "I have sniper training, you like to forget."

Michelle crinkled her brow, dismissed his statement with a wave of her hand, and rolled her eyes at Olivia as if to say, "Pay no attention to your delusional brother. In a showdown, he'd be dead meat inside of a half-second. We'll hack into his firing range record someday and I'll prove it to you…"

Tony suddenly felt the sensation of that familiar lump thing forming in his throat again as he reached for Michelle's hand under the table. Should tears, God forbid, happen to spill right in front of his ever-irascible baby sister, he would dedicate them up to all the idiots out there who'd ever dated Michelle and, for whatever unimaginable reason, had decided to dump her, or let her slip away. The sheer joy and enormous relief he felt, watching her interact so beautifully and easily with Olivia, and knowing how positive an influence and role model Michelle was going to be for her — hell, she was already in the process of being — had overwhelmed his heart to the point of pain.

As if his willingness to take a bullet for Olivia from the day she was born weren't enough of a lifelong burden, now he had two bullets to dodge till the end of his days. As he squeezed Michelle's hand a little tighter, listening to her prattle on about the ravaging effects of cigarette smoke on the delicate epidermis, he amended his earlier prayer to the testosterone gods. He had begged them to only bestow male offspring upon him and Michelle. But if they insisted upon throwing in a girl or two, that would be okay with him now. Just as long as they all shut up about supermodels, calories, and epidermal glow whenever "The Guns" or "The Duke" was on.


	9. His Nemesis

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 9: His Nemesis_

"Another thing about nicotine, which I found amazing," Michelle prattled on, "is that it ultimately undoes the positive effects of drinking spring water, just as a Diet Coke or a Starbuck's does. In other words, whereas spring water purifies epidermal tissue, cigarettes, soda and coffee actually act as a poisoning agent."

"You're kidding," Olivia panicked. "I drink Diet Coke all the time!"

Tony felt like his head was about to explode. He never thought he would see the day, but he suddenly felt himself longing for Gerald to arrive. In the past ten minutes of listening to Michelle and Olivia, he had learned more about epidermis than he'd ever wanted, needed, or hoped to know. He glanced around the restaurant, tempted to flag down that stocky head waiter and order a third dessert just to have another guy to talk to for a couple of minutes.

"Umm…" he interrupted.

"See, with supermodels, Olivia, their body is their tool of the trade… like a police officer's gun, or a carpenter's hammer, or an artist's paints…So if you're smoking just to make your family crazy, you really should try something else. I can help you think of something, if ya like."

"Would you?" Olivia beamed, promising God that she wouldn't even try whatever Michelle came up with if only He would divinely intervene and make Michelle her sister-in-law. She'd always wanted a sister: an older sister. Someone who knew more than she about epidermal physiology and holistic hair-thickening agents, and what to do if some guy comes up to you claiming to be a modeling agent, only looks a lot more like a serial killer. Michelle just seemed to know everything.

"Uhhh…" Tony interjected.

"Where did you ever learn all this?" Olivia asked, staring intently at Michelle's flawless complexion, convinced that she obviously knew what she was talking about and religiously practiced what she preached.

"Oh," Michelle giggled with a blush, "I'm just one of those voracious readers. It's just this curiosity I have about—well, everything, I guess. But I've never just looked at the pictures in French Vogue. I've always read every article, too. They're really quite insightful, I find."

"So, listen, umm…" Tony said.

"I like to read, but I get lazy about it a lot," Olivia admitted. "For instance, if you hadn't mentioned the Turlington article, I probably—"

"Okay, read this!" Tony erupted from across the table, halfway up on his feet, his dinner napkin cascading to the floor. "If I hear one more word about hair, skin, lip gloss, or goddamned Whatshername Turlington—"

Olivia's first inclination was to bark "Bite me," but Michelle had already begun to speak, so she decided to demonstrate her knowledge of manners and refrain from interrupting.

"I'm sorry, dear. Sit back down. No need to get yourself all upset like that," Michelle fussed, getting out of her seat and successfully managing to soothe the savage into lowering himself back into his own, much to Olivia's disbelieving eyes. "What would you like to talk about instead? Hmmm?"

"Anything but this stuff! Anything!" Tony sulked with self-pity.

Olivia watched, spellbound by Michelle's mystical powers as she coaxed the animal's hand away from his brow, where his fingertips had left a series of white stripes from scratching back and forth in mental anguish. It had been mind-bogglingly clear to Olivia for years, now, that the man knew nothing about skin care. Yet the government still felt he was intellectually fit to be taxed with the awesome task of protecting America. If Congress only knew him as well as she did…

"Fine, dear. We'll just move onto something you like. How's that?" Michelle suggested, reaching for her purse and gesturing for Olivia to take hold of her hand. "In fact, how would you like some peace and quiet for a few minutes while Olivia and I go to the ladies room?"

If she hadn't observed it with her own eyes, Olivia would never believe the remarkable effect Michelle's calming, unruffled tone and manner could have on the beast. He had gone from the angry stage to the sympathy-seeking stage in only a matter of mere seconds, which Olivia couldn't recall ever having witnessed before. It generally took him a solid five minutes of bellowing, minimum, before he would even consider phasing into the self-pitying mode. He was even listening to what Michelle was saying, and complying with her requests, which astounded Olivia more than anything, given how thick and bullheaded she knew him to be.

"Do you have a purse, Olivia?" Michelle checked.

"No, Lou and Mrs. Maddigan won't let me carry one—on _his_ orders," she groused, incapable of maturely concealing her palpable disdain for him a moment longer.

"We'll take our time. How's that?" Michelle turned and suggested to him, pushing some hair off his forehead in yet another impressive show of her inborn animal-taming abilities. "Order yourself an after-dinner drink. It'll relax you, dear, okay?"

"All right," he sulked, clearly still brooding though definitely no longer inflamed. "You… just make sure she behaves in there," he reminded Michelle, shooting a look at Olivia, but a strikingly different one than she was accustomed to: His eyes had said "Please?" to her this time, actually requesting, rather than ordering, that she keep her finger out of her throat.

"Are you gonna be okay out here alone?'" Michelle double-checked, glancing around the room in search of Cleavage. "Did you remember your gun?"

The formulation of an actual, though miniscule, smile materialized on the animal's face as he gazed up serenely at Michelle, nodding in the affirmative. There was something going on with his eyes, too, Olivia could swear. They were getting mushy and glowy-looking, like there was a heart beating inside him somewhere, as ludicrous a notion as it seemed. Granted, he used to have a heart — a rather big one, at that — back when she was much younger. But it had gradually dissolved, for no cause or reason that Olivia could discern, right around the time she had entered her teens and begun to notice boys. Olivia had just chalked his overnight moodiness and irritability off to old age. Granted, he wasn't quite as old as her ancient sixtysomething parents, but he was right up around the same age of most of her friends' parents.

"I'll stop and ask that headwaiter, who got you those appetizers so quickly, to bring a drink over," Michelle decided on second thought, unable to locate Cleavage's whereabouts.

As nauseating a sight as it was to behold, Olivia watched, for as long as her stomach would allow, as the beast leaned in and planted a kiss on Michelle's lips. Eeeew!

Tony watched them weave through the tables over to the headwaiter, Olivia's hand clutching Michelle's similar to the way she used to hold onto his own for dear life. From the time she was a toddler, Olivia had never been comfortable in large, crowded environments. Tony wondered if Michelle had just naturally sensed that when she'd reached out and offered her hand.

From across the room, Cleavage followed the trail from Tony's eyes to Olivia's hand tucked inside Michelle's. She watched as the battle-ax gave instructions to Morty, the headwaiter, while pointing back and forth between the cluster of after-dinner liquors behind the bar and Tony at the table. Since a one-on-one with Tony was obviously never going to happen, Cleavage briefly wondered about the possibility of getting a fourseome going. She immediately dashed the thought, however, wanting to kick herself for having been so nasty to the old bag earlier, who would surely never allow her to join the love fest now. Sadly, Cleavage resigned herself to accepting the distinct likelihood of never getting to sink her teeth into hunka-hunka Tony Almeida.

With his usual lightening speed, the headwaiter approached and set a drink down in front of Tony. Lifting it to his mouth, he smiled from the almond-reeking scent that instantly overwhelmed his nostrils. Michelle had ordered him a glass of Frangelica — possibly the girliest after-dinner drink in existence. There was so much he had to teach her.

His eye caught the appearance of Gerald standing nervously by the front of the restaurant, trying to smooth out his raggedy hair with his saturated palms. Generally, Tony would've smelled him coming and safely concluded that the Frangelica must have knocked his sixth freak-sniffing sense temporarily out of whack.

"You're a half-hour early," he growled as he always did, given Gerald's annoying penchant for arriving no fewer than thirty minutes early whenever he was granted an audience, or summoned to appear before him.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Almeida, sir," Gerald quaked with wild-eyed fear, standing at rigid attention, his body visibly rattling as noticeably as his voice was breaking. Tony arched an angry eyebrow, snarling at him in feigned disbelief.

"Uhh, excuse me? What did you just—"

_"Agent!"_ Gerald sputtered in horror, catching his unforgivable error. "Yes, sir, Agent Almeida, sir," he quickly corrected himself, terror now replacing the fear in his eyes and sweat glistening off his heavily coated brow and upper lip. Tony took his time sipping down the Frangelica, allowing the seventeen-year-old to languish in his panic a little longer before releasing his eye-lock and granting him permission to breathe again.

"That's better," he grumbled on the outside while snickering on the inside, thoroughly enjoying himself. Laying the empty glass down, he casually tapped his fingertips atop the small plate in front of him, which originally held a sinfully large wedge of chocolate mousse cake, though no longer contained even so much as a singular crumb.

Gerald promptly snapped into action, emptying his pockets, one by one, and laying the contents on the precise spot Tony had indicated. He then hurriedly went about the routine tasks of turning his pockets inside-out, rolling each pant leg up and back down again, and removing and shaking each shoe out to prove that he wasn't covertly concealing anything. Tony snickered to himself again, wishing Lou were still there. Lou always so enjoyed this particular segment of their finely honed inspection procedure.

"Is everything all right, sir?" the maitre d' gingerly approached the table and inquired as half the restaurant stared intently at Gerald.

"Couldn't be better," Tony muttered, deftly digging out and flashing his C.T.U. identification, grateful that Michelle wasn't around to catch him doing it again.

He sifted through the contents on the plate, meticulously separating and categorizing the items into neat, logical piles, pausing for a moment to unwrap Gerald's last stick of chewing gum and fold it into his mouth. Sitting up a little straighter, he began inspecting each item, though with no expectation of actually finding anything incriminating, like a cigarette lighter or a roach clip. After all, Gerald had been prepared to come before him. Only when Tony would spring a surprise inspection would he ever turn up any items of true evidentiary value.

What concerned him, however, was what he didn't find in the pile, once again: namely condoms. Though Tony was hardly anyone to talk at the moment, having himself just committed the most egregious violation in the entire protect-thyself handbook, he nevertheless glared up at Gerald, who already knew what was coming.

"Your sister and I don't engage in sexual intercourse, sir, Agent Almeida, sir," Gerald croaked like the nervous wreck that he was, eyes forward, not daring to look directly at AgentAlmeidaSir without prior authorization.

"My foot," Tony snarled, patting around his pockets for the condom he always brought along for the express purpose of adding it to the pile whenever Gerald's pockets failed to produce one. Gerald's hard gulp assured him that he hadn't forgotten his vow to personally remove the freak's testicles and feed them to him, should he ever catch Gerald even so much as looking at Olivia with lust in his heart.

"We remember what the definition of 'jail bait' is, don't we, son?" Tony pop-quizzed him.

"Yes, sir, Agent Almeida, sir," Gerald responded like a terrified inductee on his first day of boot camp, precisely as Tony and Lou had meticulously trained him to do.

It was the only military training Gerald was ever likely to receive, natural-born flunky and full-time slacker that Tony was convinced he was. A taste of boot camp couldn't do the kid any harm, he had rationalized back when Lou had originally begun barking orders at the scraggly-haired pill popper, ecstatic to find an outlet through which to fondly relive his glory days as an Army Drill Sargeant. Tony couldn't remember if he had ever congratulated Lou for coming up with such a superb concept. It was the perfect way to terrify Gerald into thinking about the ramifications of his actions before, not after, taking them. It also simultaneously taught him important life lessons, like respect for his elders and, even more importantly and to the point, respect for women — Olivia, specifically.

While Tony knew that he could no sooner control Gerald's raging seventeen-year-old hormones any more than he had been able to harnass his own at that age, he could at least safeguard Olivia's chastity by passing along to Gerald the sage teachings of his father and grandfather regarding the handling, treatment, and overall attitude toward women:

First and foremost, they were not there for the using and disgarding, both Tony's Dad and grandfather had begun drumming into his head long before Tony had ever hit puberty. Women were gifts from the testosterone gods and, as such, were to be treated with the utmost respect and kindness, his elders had carefully schooled him. Women weren't mere slabs of beef, there but to satisfy a young man's sexual urges, then simply tossed aside after fulfilling a momentary purpose: that's what the testerone gods had created airbrushed Playboy women for. Real, live, actual women, on the other hand, had real, live, actual emotions and minds and enormous contributions to make to a man's life. Their thoughts were to be listened to; their sentiments toward their own bodies respected; and their mystical, miraculous charms cherished, like precious jewels.

Gerald hadn't given Tony the impression that he understood any of those rules, concepts, or practices; just the opposite, in fact. The kid had struck him as a natural-born hit-and-run Casanova humpmeister — the type who kept a score card, and couldn't wait to get Olivia alone long enough to establish celebrity status among his buddies for having been the guy to bag the best looking babe in the school; possibly even on the planet.

All said, Tony just didn't trust the guy. And neither did Lou, who was up to his neck with four daughters and had commented to Tony on Day One that Gerald reminded him of a "back-alley mutt sniffing around one of them weirdo France Poodles… Y'know… them fluffy white stuck-up dogs." Together they had devised a three-month, boot-camp-style torture test for Gerald, figuring that if he was still coming around after that amount of time in simulated hell, it would mean that he had legitimate feelings for Olivia and wasn't just harboring ulterior motives of becoming a locker room legend.

Now, fully two months later, Gerald was still steadily holding his ground, much to SirAgentAlmeidaSir's shock and chagrin.

"What are you doing to him!" Olivia's whispery voice came squealing up from behind Tony, racing past him and over to Gerald's side.

"Honey?" Michelle said in confusion, placing a gentle hand on Tony's shoulder and staring at the terrified young man whom Olivia was trying to hug. Gerald's arms were too rigidly frozen at his sides, however, for even Olivia's frail little arms to slide through.

"See, Michelle?" Olivia fumed in near tears. "Do you _see_what I mean?"

Michelle looked down at Tony sitting cavalierly slumped and cross-legged in his seat, contentedly chewing Gerald's gum and counting the money inside his wallet. He paused to recheck the pictures of Gerald's parents and seven-year-old sister, moving on only after he was certain that none of the faces matched the FBI's latest most-wanted mugshots.

"Hello, sir, ma'am, sir… I… Hello, ma'am, miss… ma'am… Oh, my God!" Gerald panicked, with tears forming in his eyes.

"Agent," Tony murmered quietly. "Agent Dessler."

"Hello, Agent Destler, ma'am," Gerald promptly gave it another shot, his heart racing at a dangerous pace, even for someone so youthful and vital as he.

"Do you _see_ what he does to Gerald?" Olivia whined in misery to Michelle as loudly as her whispery voice would allow. "Relax, Gerald. Don't pay any attention to _him_. He's not God."

"Honey, is this really necessary?" Michelle asked with a disapproving "tsk" of annoyance in her tone, wrestling Gerald's wallet free from his hands.

"I was all done looking at it anyway," Tony confidently assured her, appearing immensely pleased with himself. Michelle angrily laid the wallet amid the other possessions and gave the dessert plate a slight push in the terrified young man's direction.

"Gerald, you can return your things to your pockets," she authoritatively assured him, still shaking her head at Tony.

"Thank you, Agent, ma'am," Gerald sputtered, though visibly and firmly refusing to move a muscle without permission from Tony himself.

"'Agent Dessler, Ma'am,'" Tony casually corrected him, like a fifty-pound cat toying with a mouse he had trapped into a corner.

"Thank you, Agent Des…"

"That… that won't be necessary, Gerald," Michelle assured him, holding her palm up to him like a school crossing guard. Tony slumped down a little further and criss-crossed his arms over his chest, seeming a bit bored already, now that he wouldn't have Gerald to terrorize anymore.

Noticing the crinkled, discarded wrapper, Michelle thrust a cupped hand under Tony's mouth, demanding the gum he was happily gnawing away on. Women: They always eventually showed up and spoiled all the fun, like they had alarm clocks built inside them somewhere. He cooperatively tilted his head forward just enough to allow the pilfered gum to drop into her palm.

"I was already done with that, too," he proudly assured her, watching as she dug into her purse and replaced Gerald's gum with a stick of her own. Her head hadn't stopped shaking yet, nor had her tongue stopped tsk-ing as she moved across the table toward Olivia, who by now had collapsed into her chair and was sobbing in frustration.

"How come I had to be the one to get _him _for a brother?" she wept inconsolably as Michelle soothingly rubbed her skeletal shoulders. "Sit down, Gerald!" Olivia pleaded with her boyfriend.

"I… I can't do that, Miss Almeida," Gerald informed her in the trembling voice.

"Don't call me that!" Olivia wailed even harder as Michelle shot another thoroughly annoyed look across the table at Tony. He snickered, pretending not to notice.

"Mizz," he wasted no time in correcting Gerald, putting hard emphasis on the "z's" and stringing them out as though the salutation contained about thirty of them.

"That'll be enough, dear," Michelle barked at him, now petting the back of Olivia's head with one hand and digging through her purse in a frenzy with the other, praying she still had some aloe-treated tissues left and wondering what in the world she would do if she didn't. "Sit down, Gerald," she ordered him.

"I… I can't do that, Agent Destler, ma'am," he regretted to inform her in a gulping voice, sounding only moments away from joining his girlfriend in a pool of tears. "Not without the Lieutenant's permission, ma'am," he clarified.

Tony smirked, looking down at his shirt and pressing a moistened fingertip against what appeared to be a stray chocolate crumb, then bringing it up and inspecting it before putting it into his mouth.

"For Pete'ssake, he is not a Lieutenant. Sit down, Gerald!" Michelle ordered him again, enormously relieved as she pulled one of only two remaining aloe-treated tissues out of her purse, quickly scanning the crowd for well-groomed women, just in case Olivia required a few more.

Gerald glanced fearfully at Tony, who slowly closed and reopened his eyes, signaling his permission for Gerald to collect his pocket possessions and seat himself.

"I was a Lieutenant in the Marines," Tony factually reminded Michelle. "You technically retain your title until death, y'know."

"Which shouldn't be too long from now if you don't stop upsetting this entire table," Michelle barked again, dropping herself into her seat in an aggravated heap before Tony had the chance to jump up and pull it out for her — or, better yet, order Gerald to perform the task for him.

"I leave you alone for five minutes…" Michelle snapped at her wit's end, checking Olivia's condition again.

She sighed deeply, not even sure if she still wanted the slice of carrot cake sitting before her, with one large forkful conspicuously missing. The culprit's eyes gazed wantonly at it, but after having made perfect wrecks of both Olivia and Gerald, Michelle had no intention of rewarding his actions. She would have the carrot cake wrapped, take it home, and enjoy it during that silly Navarone Guns movie, or whatever in the world it was called.

"Gerald," she said across the table, "there's no need for that 'Mizz Almeida' business. Address Olivia by her first name as you always do. "

"If Gerald and I hold hands, Michelle, will you be able to keep _him_ under control?" Olivia sniffled, gently dabbing her tears, just as the beauty editor of Elle recommended, instead of wiping back and forth against the exceptionally delicate and sensitive epidermis surrounding the eye region.

"I, umm… I can't do that," Gerald informed Olivia.

"Gerald, take hold of Olivia's hand this instant," Michelle snapped, turning to Tony. "And you… you just stop those intimidation tactics, mister." Tony responded by tilting his head a little lower and snickering again.

After a few minutes of deadly silence, the tension at the table was mericifully broken when he lightly kicked Michelle's foot under the table and glanced down at the long-ago-forgotten yellow shopping bag on the floor between them.

"Well?" he offered with a conciliatory grin, giving her a nod of encouragement to see what "we bought." Michelle's eyes immediately brightened as she reached down and snatched the bag. Olivia, who appeared to be as big a natural-born snoop as Michelle herself, gazed at it longingly.

"What did you get?" she asked, excitedly squeezing Gerald's hand as he sat paralyzed in his chair, waiting for his testicles to be lobbed off at any moment for holding Mizz Almeida's hand right smack in front of the Lieutenant.

Michelle was about to hand the bag over to Olivia, but hesitated at the last moment and passed it across the table to Gerald instead, hoping to make him feel a little more welcome.

"Why don't you do the honors, Gerald," Michelle suggested, watching his eyes widen in alarm while Olivia's widened in sheer delight. Michelle heard Tony sigh deeply, but ignored him. Gerald glanced furtively over at the Lieutenant, seeking permission to fulfil MizzDestlerMa'am's request. Tony gave it brief consideration, then nodded his chin, authorizing Gerald to move.

Stunned, Gerald gingerly dug into the small shopping bag, producing an object tightly wrapped in tissue paper and held together by a sticker bearing the logo of the little Italian couple's store. His hands shook as he tried to undo the wrapping without tearing it, realizing that he had forgotten to procure permission to compromise the integrity of the pulp.

"Just open it!" Olivia insisted in a whispery holler, no longer able to contain her curiosity. Gerald reluctantly ripped into the tissue and gasped at the handmade porcelain piece in his hand. It was a watering can for plants, molded into the likeness of an ancient fertility god. The figure's arm was bent into the shape of a handle, with a grossly exaggerated fertility organ subbing as the watering can's spout, extending outward about six times the distance it biologically ought to.

"Geeziz!" Tony barked, quickly jetting up from his seat, momentarily confused as to what to do: cover Olivia's eyes or snatch the fertility god from Gerald's hands before a blessing had the chance to, God forbid, transfer itself into his loins.

"Self-portrait?" Olivia giggled up at Tony as he buried the pornographic porcelain back in the shopping bag and handed it over to Michelle, who for some unimaginable reason was finding the episode just as funny as Olivia did.

Another round of uncomfortable silence was broken by the muffled jangling of the cell phone inside Tony's pocket.

"Mom. Yeah, hi," he said, still glaring at Gerald as if the watering can incident were all his fault. "Of course," he continued. "Where are ya, anyway? Ya didn't even say… What do ya mean 'of course what'? Of course I took her from Lou. You didn't exactly leave me much choice, and I wasn't about to … She's fine, Ma… No… Mom, he's fine, too. They're both sitting right here. Where are you? Ya sound like you're on a plane…"

He listened quietly as Amanda Almeida rattled off her complete itinerary, including what his Dad was thinking about ordering for dinner that evening. Tony's pained eyes drifted over to Michelle, looking at her pleadingly, despite knowing there was nothing she could do but hold his hand, which she had already taken upon herself to do. He wallowed in her eyes gazing upon him, quietly and sympathetically, which was exactly what he needed at that moment. She always seemed to know precisely what he needed and when.

"Of course she did, Mom. She always does… Mom, it wasn't my… Ma, I didn't do anything to him…" Tony growled impatiently, listening for another moment while he rubbed his eyes, then turning and speaking to Gerald loudly enough for Amanda Almeida to overhear. "Gerald, did I lay one finger on you?"

"No, sir, Agent Almeida, sir."

"See? … No, Gerald's driving her. Mrs. Madison's gonna be— Mrs. Maddigan. Whatever, Mom. She's gonna be there by the time they arrive. We're just finishing up… Yeah, I will. Don't worry… Nothing, just watching TV… 'Cause I'm tired… I feel fine, Mom. Geeziz. It's just been a long week. Do ya… Mom? Do ya wanna talk to her? She's right here… 'Cause I just don't feel like sitting at a bar all night, Mom. I'm tired…"

As he held the phone out in Olivia's direction, shaking his head, Amanda Almeida could still be heard talking about the arrival of her girlfriend Lillian's third grandchild and reminding her son of the unlikelihood of ever meeting a nice, eligible women inside his living room.

"Mommy? Hi," Olivia cooed happily and brightly. "Huh?… Of course not… Mom, I didn't take any pills. Ask him yourself if you don't believe me… No, Mom, I'm just in a good mood… 'Cause I was talking to Michelle, this really nice lady he works with…"

Tony's eyes tripled in size as he leapt to his feet, staring wildly at Michelle. He couldn't believe his ears. He shot Olivia a threatening look, leaning in and taking hold of Gerald by the neck as if to promise Olivia that he would cavity-search him right there on the spot if she dared tip their Mom off about his relationship. Michelle rushed around the table and angrily tried to free Gerald, who'd begun weeping softly.

"Nah, she just works for him," Olivia casually continued with nonchalance, not the least bit phased by her brother's eyeballs screaming at her. "Nah, there's nothing there. You can tell… 'Cause ya can just tell, Mom. She can't stand him. It couldn't be more apparent… Ask Lou if ya don't believe me. He met her, too… 'Cause he dragged her along, that's why. You know him. She works for him. What was she supposed to do? Tell her boss 'go bite me?'… I forget her last name," Olivia lied, soothingly caressing Gerald's forearm as she watched Michelle muscle Tony back into his seat. "Yellow floral. An Isaac Mizhari … Uh-huh… Yeah, I will, Mom, I promise… Okay… Okay, Mom… Tell Daddy I love him, too, okay?… Okay… Okay, Mom… Okay…"

Olivia shook her head, reaching across the table and handing the talking telephone back over to Tony, then turning her full attention to Gerald, who was blowing his nose in Michelle's last aloe-treated tissue.

"Mom?… Ma… I can't hear ya, Ma," Tony said, allowing his voice to trail off as he held the phone a little further and further away from his mouth. "You've gotta… Mom, you've gotta speak up a little… Mom?… Look, either my battery's dying or your flying through a—"

He softly clicked the phone shut and turned it off. His head was spinning. He closed his eyes for a moment, then checked his watch, conducting a quick calculation of Gerald's drive time against Mrs. Maddigan's estimated time of arrival at the Almeida house.

"I'm gonna give Mrs. Madison a call from the pay phone, sweetheart," he said to Michelle, exasperated. Aside from Chappelle, nobody had the power to drive him quite so crazy as Amanda Almeida, Grandmother Wannabe of the highest order. He dug a credit card out of his wallet and handed it to Michelle.

"If the check comes, just sign for it, okay, honey?" he asked, stooping over to kiss the top of her head and promising to return in just a few minutes.

Heading for the back of the restaurant, he stopped and turned after a couple of steps.

"Hey, Olivia," he said a little meekly, watching her glance up with her usual scowl. "You, uhh… Thanks for that. Ya handled that really well… with Mom, I mean."

Olivia turned her head toward Michelle in shock, trying to determine if she thought this might be some kind of a trick. Michelle lifted her eyebrows and barely discernibly shrugged her shoulders, signaling her opinion that his compliment had sounded genuine to her.

"Umm… thanks," Olivia responded cautiously, still a little suspicious of Tony's intentions and not quite stupid enough to let her guard down just yet.

After making his call and stopping off at the men's room, Tony reapproached the table, listening to Michelle explain to Gerald the unfortunate statistical odds of a rock band succeeding these days, but reminding him of the good news: that record companies were well known for sending their headhunters into college towns, where many a rock band had been discovered in the past, and invited on the spot, to come in and record a demo.

"Besides, there's no better fun to be had than four solid years in college," she was in the middle of concluding before Tony abruptly jumped in and interrupted.

"Gerald, I wanna show ya something," he said, placing his hand on the back of Michelle's chair.

Gerald leapt to his feet like someone had just informed him that a bomb was taped to the bottom of his chair.

"Yes, sir, Agent Almeida, sir."

"Siddown, Gerald, and pay attention," Tony continued with remarkable calm, proceeding with a demonstration of how to pull a woman's chair out when the time arrived to get up and leave. Michelle rolled her eyes at Olivia and proceeded to dutifully participate, placing her hand into Tony's palm and rising to her feet in tandem with the chair moving out from beneath her.

"Got that?" Tony grilled Gerald, whose head bobbed affirmatively like a canine figurine mounted on the back ledge of a car window.

Michelle stood patiently waiting for Tony to go through the motions of reseating her again when he clasped his hand around hers, instead, signaling their departure. Remembering that he had counted only eleven dollars when he'd rifled through Gerald's wallet, Tony paused to fish a few twenties out from his own, tossing them on the table in the freak's direction.

"You can keep her out 'til eleven," he announced.

"Uhh… who, sir?" Gerald sputtered.

"My sister, ya idiot," he responded with amazing control. "One second late in getting her home and Mrs. Madison is gonna be on the phone with me. Do ya understand that, Gerald?"

"Yes… Yes, sir, Agent Almeida… sir…" Gerald stuttered in wholesale disbelief.

Olivia's intoxicating cat's eyes had themselves grown to mountain cat proportions, wildly darting in confusion between Michelle, Gerald, and her suddenly-not-so-disgusting-anymore brother — or at least the body of her brother. She had no way of identifying the entity that had apparently seized control of it at some point between the telephone, men's room, and his return to the table.

In her confusion, she only half-heard the directives he proceeded to rattle off to Gerald, warning him to listen up good because he was only going to say it once: None of those Freddie Krueger-type movies or Olivia would be up all night; park yourself outside the ladies room door and wait for her, 'cause there are all kinds of nuts out there in the world and there's no such thing as "too safe"; don't even try driving over the speed limit 'cause someone at his office had already been ordered to check the satellites at fifteen-minute intervals, including all local lover's-lane haunts, should he possibly be so stupid as to even think about stopping at one.

Olivia tried to catch Michelle's attention and was confounded at first when she noticed her looking a little misty. There was a small smile on her face, however, as she gazed up at Tony, so she obviously wasn't upset with him; evidently just the opposite, as far as Olivia could ascertain from Michelle's overall lovey-dovey expression.

But Olivia herself began to better understand Michelle's odd reaction when her suddenly-not-so-disgusting-anymore brother paused on his way past her and patted her head, asking instead of ordering her to be good tonight, and in a voice that Olivia could've sworn sounded civilized. She nodded in stunned agreement, turning around and watching him lead Michelle by the hand through the maze of tables, pausing to give "a little something extra" to the portly headwaiter who'd gotten the appetizers to the table so quickly.

Back out on the street again, Tony drew in a deep, cleansing breath of the cool, crisp, evening smog. Things felt right with the world. Life was good. If he could only murder Gerald and dispose of the body where he knew it would never be found, life would be better than good: It would be perfect. Perhaps between God and the testosterone overlords, one of them would come up with a plan of ridding Gerald from Olivia's life, and henceforth his own, in a way that wouldn't hurt her too deeply. She was still young — hell, she had just turned sixteen less than two months ago — so Tony felt confident that she would be able to emotionally recover from Gerald's untimely demise without suffering permanent damage. At that point, she would only have eight more men to run through before meeting up with her own "tenth." Someone hopefully far more befitting and worthy of her than a pill-popping, chain-smoking, aspiring rock star, with every statistic going against him; not to mention his singing voice and bass-playing abilities.

He glanced down at Michelle, whose heels were back to gently clicking against the cement. She was being quiet and reflective, which was a bad sign. It meant that, with his luck, she would inevitably feel like talking again the second The Guns had begun to play. He should probably get her chatting now so she'd be all talked out by the time Greg Peck walked into the briefing room, thinking he had been flown into Greece for some R&R, only to discover that he was about to be sent on a harrowing covert mission to save a couple of thousand WWII soldiers from certain death at the hands of the Nazis. But Michelle seemed so content, thinking whatever it was she was thinking, that Tony generously decided to allow her to continue.

He would tell her later about how something his grandfather had once said on the subject of "trust" had suddenly popped into his head while dialing Mrs. Madison's number: "In a situation involving two or more people," Pop had assured him, "you never have to worry about trusting them all as long as you know you can always trust one."

All these years later, Tony had only just realized what that sentiment meant.

It meant that he didn't have to long for the day when he could trust Gerald to take good, responsible care of Olivia — a day that was never going to arrive — as long as he knew he could trust Olivia to make smart, responsible decisions and judgment calls in the best interests of herself. Once Olivia became the keeper of her own shots, Gerald would likely end up just dashing his own corrupt plans and acquiescing to Olivia's wishes, instead. At that point, Gerald would effectively be rendered wholly inconsequential in the scheme of things.

His pills would no longer seem so enticing to Olivia at the cost of having to ultimately sacrifice her natural skin glow; mindlessly sitting through yet another band rehearsal wouldn't hold quite the same cognitive appeal when she could be immersing herself in a sizzly epidermis article instead; a vodka-laced Starbuck's or Diet Coke would no longer go down as smoothly as a cold bottle of natural spring water that purified, not poisoned; nor would a cigarette or a joint seem so desirable when she could be inhaling a huge plate of vegetarian curry instead.

The revelation had given Tony pause to realize that until Olivia had the freedom and space to start making decisions for herself, Gerald would continue making them for her.

It had also given him pause to acknowledge the strides that Olivia had already demonstrated just that afternoon alone: the way she had taken the initiative, for instance, to help him out by hiding Michelle directly under their Mom's own nose; and the confidence-booster she had given Michelle when she'd told their Mom that Michelle's dress was an Isaac Mizhari. Olivia could spot a Mizhari from two planets away, and knew full-well that it wasn't his or any other designer's creation. Olivia had just said that, knowing how proud it would make Michelle feel to think that her hand-sewn creation could be mistaken for a runway original — and by a fellow French Vogue aficionado, on top of it all.

Tony had also factored in that Olivia wasn't the same girl today as she was at this very same time yesterday afternoon, now that Michelle was in the picture and had made such an impactful impression upon her.

Michelle would probably understand and agree when he explained to her later tonight about his last-second decision to loosen Olivia's leash a bit and see how responsibly she handled an entire night out with Gerald, unsupervised. In fact, Michelle would probably say the very same thing he had said to himself: that he could always tighten the reins again, should Olivia ever give him cause to.


	10. Their Pasts

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 10: Their Pasts_

If he weren't already lying down he would've fallen down.

"Geeziz, baby," he gasped, waiting for enough oxygen to refill his lungs before attempting a complete, cohesive sentence. "Geeziz…" he was forced to repeat, knowing it was about as cogent and intelligent a thought as his brain was going to be capable of formulating for the next few moments.

His stomach muscles ached, still tense and pinched from clutching so hard. His brow glistened. His head was spinning, reduced to a state of reeling mush after Michelle had spontaneously decided to put off making the coffee she'd promised and percolate him instead, leaving him hideously, though euphorically, drained of his senses. It was a state of blissful disorientation he was just going to have to start getting used to, he silently reckoned with an exhausted smile.

"Get up here, you…" he panted heavily, sliding her along his body and pushing his tongue into her mouth, tasting himself. Her muffled moans gradually became intermixed with spurts of fiendish giggles as she noticed his chest starting to heave hard again, instead of leveling down.

"Ya think you're so funny, don't ya," he grinned against her mouth, enjoying how pleased she seemed to be with the aftereffects of her wicked handiwork.

"I distinctly remember you telling me I should just take whatever I wanted," she peeked through her lids and reminded him in all innocence.

"I was talking about the refrigerator and you know it," he scowled, pushing one side of her panties away enough to perch two fingertips left and right of a pinch-perfect quantity of skin, threatening to close in for the squeeze.

"You might wanna be a little more specific about such things in the future," Michelle advised, as if his current state of physical and mental disarray were entirely a result of his own doing.

"Never mind," he grumbled, cooperatively holding his arms aside for a brief moment while she squirmed herself into a more comfortable position on top of him. "That was technically a sexual assault," he apprised her, snaking his hands down between their stomachs to readjust the waistband and snaps on his commemorative John Wayne flannel boxers. "I could haul you into court, if I wanted to, y'know. "

"I'd love to be a fly on the wall of the jury deliberation room," she snickered. "Remind me again. When were you were screaming 'stop' and 'don't' and 'unhand me, you evil fiend?' I must've missed it, what with all that heavy breathing and deafening moaning going on…"

"That was code for 'stop,' " he entered into the record. "It was the best I could do under the circumstances... getting jumped and rendered speechless like that."

"Uh-huh... Not to cite too many more glaring weaknesses in your case, or anything, but... at what point did ya say this 'speechlessness' overcame you, exactly? " she inquired on cross-examination. "Was it before or after ya somehow managed to get 'Oh, God,' 'Oh, Geeziz,' and 'That feels so incredible, baby' out of your mouth a couple of dozen times, or so? "

She rested her case amid his assorted ensuing defenses, denials, and motions for appeal, nuzzling a headful of curls into his neck and bringing her cheek to rest against the soft double-brushed cotton of his long-sleeve CUBS t-shirt — the one she had been wearing all morning, but which he had insisted was his turn to wear when they'd changed from their linner clothes into more appropriate DVD-wear.

Once she was settled comfortably in, Tony replaced his arms around her and listened to her peaceful sighs in response to his fingertips slowly trailing along her curves and crevices. He halted abruptly, however, when he felt her jaw gently straining against his shoulder, as if laboring to conceal a yawn while prepping herself for a quick, clandestine pre-show catnap.

"Uhh… No... No ya don't," he nudged her, shaking his head in bemused disbelief as he steered her face front and center with a handful of curls from the back of her head. "First of all, I'm the one who's supposed to be passing out right about now, not you. Secondly, our sleep-clocks are already off enough as it is…"

That's all he needed was for her chatterbox to be fully rested and re-energized just as Greg Peck, Tony Quayle, Tony Quinn, and — at least in his own mind — Tony Almeida began their treacherous ascent up the slick mountainside under cloak of darkness, in search of some unsuspecting Nazi butt to blast into oblivion. If Michelle wanted to talk through the movie he had gotten for her, that was another story. But silence would be observed during the historic dismantling of the two giant killer guns deviously embedded into the mountain on the tiny Mediterranean island of Navarone.

"I wasn't even thinking about falling asleep," she blatantly lied.

"I'm sure, " he said, angling her head a little to the side to give his lips better access to the weak spot he'd discovered the night before, just behind and slightly south of her ear. "Next you'll be telling me again that ya never said ya loved me in your sleep," he mumbled between nibbles, smiling at the way her eyes opened and closed in precise synchronization with his lips landing and lifting away from that spot.

"Not to crush you, dear," she shuddered, "but I never did say it... 'Love you, too'... You'll notice the absence of the 'I' in that statement. "

"You'll notice the presence of my hand on your butt, " he quietly pointed out to her, perching his fingertips again to deliver the pinch he had earlier promised.

"I don't suppose you're well-read enough to know that there are entire cultures that regard pinching not as a threat, but a compliment."

"First the woman assaults my body, then she insults my intelligence," he murmured upward, acknowledging the presence of a higher power and demanding an explanation.

"Ya can't assault the willing, dear, " she casually corrected him with a sigh, immediately followed by a squeal from the playful pinch he finally landed.

"Just... you just get that coffee going, " he muttered, feigning defeat and disgruntlement. "You remember... the coffee beans you were just about to grind before ya decided to grind my— Just get busy with that coffee, y'hear?"

"You poor soul," Michelle sympathized with a bleeding heart, steadying her palms against his biceps as she obligingly raised herself up, taking a second to brashly press herself against him as a subtle reminder of the indomitable powers she held over him.

Once on her feet again, she stooped to grab the fertility watering can sitting on the hassock, wondering which room or closet it might look best in. She suddenly felt his fingertips touch a zone that sent her lurching forward in surprise, nearly toppling herself over the hassock in the process. She turned to catch a glimpse of his deviant smirk, there but to remind her of his own formidable powers, lest she be foolhardy enough to forget or deny their existence.

Ignoring him, Michelle straightened back up and countered with a slow sashay toward the kitchen, working an exaggerated Cleavage-esque sway into her hips. Tony dropped his head off the side of the couch and strained his neck to watch her, his heart melting at the sight of the aged flannel shirttails moving in rhythm with the curves they covered. His commemorative John Wayne pajama top fit her so perfectly, he thought with a sigh to himself. Sure, he'd had to roll the sleeves up a few of times, but that didn't matter since the rich, dyed-through flannel featured the same scenes on the inside as it did on the outside. Flannel, like everything else, was so much better made back in the days when his grandfather had given him the pajamas for his fourteenth birthday. One could literally wear the shirt inside-out, if so desired. The only difference would be The Duke technically riding into the east instead of the west, which only a trained eye like his would ever notice anyway.

No amount of bare skin could be sexier, he was forced to conclude, gazing at the flannel Nevada rock formations sloping around Michelle's delicate shoulder; her hind quarters moving in animated rhythm with the Duke's horse's, like two sets of haunches predestined to meet up with each other someday along the dusty road of life; and The Duke himself, sitting tall and mighty in the saddle, square in the middle of Michelle's back, heading into Indian territories unknown, with seemingly no concern for the inevitable ambushes that lie ahead.

Tony had originally planned to have Michelle wear the matching flannel boxers, but the waist would've been way too big and he didn't know if he had any pins, or even where Mrs. Sanchez might keep them. The pajama top's long, curved tails, which reached the center of Michelle's creamy thighs, would've totally obscured the boxers anyway, so he'd decided to commandeer them for himself, since the vivid pictures contrasted so nicely with his long-sleeved Cubs t-shirt. Besides, after drinking in the vision of Michelle in those little black panties of hers, it was hard to deny that it was at least ten times more exciting than the varietal scenes of sun-bleached buffalo skulls and freshly shot Indian corpses immortalizing his boxers.

The Duke; the Cubs; the Navarone boys coming up soon; his woman barefoot in the kitchen, grinding his beans and brewing up a hot pot of java … How much happiness could one man bear.

Tony dragged himself up from the couch and body-stretched, then crossed over to the cabinet housing the TV and began searching the drawers for the photos he had promised to show Michelle after she had succeeded in bugging him into submission. There were a lot of pictures of Olivia, which he had taken over the years, but there weren't any shots of himself as a kid, just as he had forewarned Michelle. His Mom had always been afraid that some crazed, scissor-weilding, newly dumped girlfriend might inadvertantly cut one of them up in the process of slashing contemporary pictures of happier, more romantic times. So his Mom had always insisted upon keeping his baby and growing-up pictures at home in the family album, "just to be on the safe side, darling." But he at least had a couple of college and Marines pictures to show Michelle, which he hoped would be sufficient enough to appease her curiosity until he could get Olivia to scan some boyhood pictures for him.

"That's all there are?" Michelle sulked, laying the coffee mugs on the hassock and rejoining him on the couch where he had since repositioned himself in a half-seated semi-slump: back against the arm, knees bent, and feet flat against the cushions as he rearranged the pictures into chronological order.

"Sorry, baby," he said, pausing while she settled herself in between his legs with her back to him, his chest serving as her pillow.

"Good?" he asked patiently, waiting for her shifting to wind down.

"Ah-huh... Wait. Let me just..."

"Owww!... Michelle! For cryssake!"

"What did I..."

"Ya gotta... Geeziz, ya can't go putting your elbow just anywhere in the world ya want, for cryssake... You're doing damage here..."

"Well... okay, dear... How am I supposed to know?... There... Better?"

"Ya don't have to know. Just always assume," he whined.

"You're right... How's that? Comfortable now?"

"For a man in pain, y'mean?" he pouted.

"You're fine, dear... Okay?... Let's just relax."

"I'll relax when you're all done squirming around… Good, now?" he double-checked, throwing in a final self-pitying whimper, just for effect, before letting his guy-guard down and dropping his arms around her. He quickly shuffled through the pictures, giving her a sneak preview before starting again from the top.

"No pictures of your Dad either?" Michelle asked in disappointment.

"Nah, not here, baby," he said. "See this, though? If ya laid a picture of Mom at sixteen next to this one of Olivia, you'd swear they were twins. So just add a couple of decades to Olivia and that's what my Mom looks like, okay?" he said, thinking about how truly and exceptionally pretty his Mom was for a woman her age. She'd worked hard throughout her life to earn the youthful appearance she now sported, religiously hitting the gym three times a week and decades before the health-craze would eventually sweep the country. She never once missed a hair or facial appointment, either; not even when she was in the hospital after Olivia was born. Jose and his crew of snooty stylists, manicurists, and stuck-up skincare specialists were only too happy to make the pilgrimage up to her hospital suite for double the extortionist prices he already charged at his salon.

"Oh, my God!" Michelle squealed in delight when the next photo in the deck revealed a full-body, grim-faced shot of Tony holding the newly arrived Olivia L. H. Almeida, wrapped in a pink baby blanket. He looked none too thrilled about it, either. Someone off-camera had obviously ordered him to take the baby or live to regret it, though had failed to come up with a threat heinous enough to coax him into losing the scowl. Michelle couldn't help but laugh. It was the same expression of intolerance that lacquered his face whenever he was in the presence of Chappelle or Hammond.

Gazing at the perfectly angelic baby swadled in pink, Michelle bugged him to know if his relationship with Olivia had always been so fractious, or if some singular event had led up to the strained relationship that existed today.

"An event aside from the puking business, y'mean?" he asked, biding his time while he thought about whether he even wanted to get into it all.

It was a difficult subject for him to reflect upon. Although he had essentially hated her pablum-eating guts at first, Olivia — who'd always loved his guts from Day One— had eventually succeeded in bamboozling him into becoming her adoring slave. Only nowadays it seemed like she could barely even stand to be in the same room with him anymore, which bothered him immensely. He knew that his 24-hour surveillance tactics, replete with biotelemetric satellite tracking when necessary, had an awful lot to do with the strife that infested their present-day relationship, but that, unfortunately, couldn't be helped. He was doing it for her own good. But the real division, he explained to Michelle, had actually begun a number of years earlier, when Olivia had the gall to make the transformation from girlhood to womanhood without asking his permission.

Michelle, in her inimitable fashion, gently cajoled him into sharing the gory, distressing details, beginning at the beginning when he'd had such a tough time coping with the news that God's Gift from Heaven was on the way. He'd come home from his first year of college for the Christmas holidays to find his Mom — already five months pregnant by then — greeting him at the door in a conspicuously and uncharacteristically large dress.

"It's a Versace, darling. Do you like it?"

"What the hell is under it?" was his first question, prompting his Mom to instantaneously burst into tears, which Tony would soon realize had become her new hobby. What he hadn't been old enough to understand at the time, however, was how truly terrified his Mom was that something might go wrong with the pregnancy, given her age. So all one really had to say to her throughout those remaining four hell-months was something like, "What's the weather's gonna be like today?" to successfully set her off on a solid 10-minute crying jag.

To add to the mayhem of the moment, his Dad, who could hear an Amanda Almeida teardrop hit the ground from a mile away, had immediately emerged from his den, hugged and kissed his son innumerable times in elation, then promptly threatened to kill him if he ever made his mother cry again. But because Tony had committed the exceptionally unforgivable offense of making her cry "in her condition," his Dad had tacked an addendum onto his threat, vowing to also beat him after he got through killing him. Tony only half-listened, absorbed instead in circling around his Mom, staring at her profile in horror and demanding to know what was going on. "Pregnancy" hadn't even entered into his mind. Rather, he had quickly convinced himself that her "condition" consisted of an inoperable tumor roughly the size of a national prize-winning watermelon. Shortly thereafter, the DIB from hell would ensue.

His parents had wanted to tell him sooner, he explained to Michelle, but they hadn't known how to break it to him. They certainly didn't want to tell him over the phone, so they'd decided to wait until his first trip home from college, which would've ordinarily been the Thanksgiving holiday. But he'd never made it home for Thanksgiving, due to irresistible last-minute plans to join his buddies for a long beer-and-babes-filled weekend at a ski chalet. So his first face-to-face with his parents didn't occur until the Christmas holiday.

To Michelle's amusement, though not her surprise, Tony had predictably gone ballistic once his parents had gently explained that his Mom's condition wasn't, in fact, an inoperable tumor, but a blessed event.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded to know, thoroughly confused and sick of the suspense. "What 'blessed event'? Is she throwing a Bar Mitzvah in there, or something?"

"Don't you get smart with your mother, " his Dad had warned, threatening to smack him from here to next Tuesday, then finally dropping the bombshell on him: The inoperable watermelon was actually some screaming little varmint-in-the-making, who'd soon be bringing Tony's single-child status to an abrupt and permanent halt. Some drooley little diaper-soaking, crumb-eating rugrat had actually had the nerve to go and get conceived, with nobody even consulting him about it, which was probably a wise decision, in retrospect, since he never would have gone along with it in the first place.

It had felt like his entire world was suddenly crumbling all around him, Tony bravely explained to Michelle, who took great pains this time not to jab him with an elbow as she joined him in an upright seated position on the couch, hanging her head in solidarity with the painful plight he'd been forced to endure.

His Dad, who'd preached "protection" to him all his life, ad nauseam, was about to become the father of an accident. On top of it all, he had actually seemed terribly proud to be doing the fatherhood thing all over again "at his age."

His Mom, who used to be _his_ Mom, was now abandoning him to become somebody else's Mom. Tony also found that he couldn't look at her without envisioning his parents having sex, which was a thought that made him just as nauseous at nineteen as it had at age nine.

As the pre-Christmas days dragged by, things had progressed from bad to worse. All that his so-called friends seemed to be able to do was snicker. His girlfriend, Laurel, suddenly became baby-happy after someone had reminisced over dinner one night that Amanda Almeida had been Tony's own age —just about to turn twenty — when she had given birth to him. Only days later, Laurel proposed, Tony declined, and Laurel promptly hopped into bed with one of his so-called best buddies, whom she would eventually go on to marry inside of a year and divorce within three.

Sulky and depressed, Tony had gone back to college before the holidays were even over, relieved to get away from all the insanity. His life had been so happy only two mere weeks earlier; now everything seemed to lie in ruins. And it was all, all, all the fault of that bratty little imbecilic brother-to-be of his, whom the testosterone gods — just to make his life a couple of thousand times more miserable — had decided at the last second to change into a girl.

Even the overlords had turned on him. He couldn't believe it. It was as though someone had put a hex on him, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve it. His life was in shambles.

Then his Mom decided to give birth, of all times, on the same weekend that Tony had promised to escort his new girlfriend, Anna, to a long-awaited family event, forcing him to cancel out at the last minute, which resulted in Anna canceling their romance all together.

That was two women he had lost because of Brat Girl, and before he had even yet to lay eyes on her.

But little did he know at that point in time that his nightmare had not even formally begun. His Mom, who'd decided to make it her mission to see to it that Tony "bonded" with his new sibling, insisted that he spend his entire summer at home with the family. Tony knew that his Dad would go berserk if he refused to comply with his emotionally fragile Mom's request, so he reluctantly moved back into his old room, just one door down from the Brat Girl herself.

It had taken him less than a week to conclude that there were only three things Brat Girl was any good for: saturating Pampers, which he adamantly refused to change; wailing her lungs out at all ungodly hours of the night, which he likewise adamantly refused to get out of bed for; and making each minute of his days and nights a living hell on earth, which unfortunately for him, was something she seemed to excel at. It was also only too clear that Brat Girl had it out for him: For starters, the one night that Tony decided to drag himself out of bed and into the hallway, where his parents took turns walking the wailing Brat Girl for hours every night, the kid pulled a fast one by instantly shutting up the second her ears beheld the impressive pitch and volume of his voice, plaintively wailing about how impossible it was to get any sleep. His wails were even louder than her own, which Brat Girl found both fascinating and mesmerizing.

That's when she decided to pull her second fast one on him: The instant Tony stormed back to his room, she immediately began her wailing again. His parents stared at each other, then rustled him out of bed, handed Brat Girl over, and demanded that he take a turn walking the hallway with her. Sure enough, the angel from hell immediately piped down, like someone had pressed an "off" button, and started cooing contentedly in his arms smack in front of their parents. The house had suddenly become so quiet, you could hear a pin drop in the furthest recesses of the wine cellar where his Dad had recently been spending an excessive amount of time, it seemed.

Needless to say, and much to Tony's infuriation, he found himself permanently assigned to Brat Girl Detail from that night forward, which didn't exactly help advance the "bonding" process any. Especially after it had become crystal clear to him that the only reason Brat Girl would even start wailing in the first place was for the sheer enjoyment and personal pleasure of watching him come stumbling through her door whenever she felt like summoning him.

"You're such a good soul," Michelle beamed in admiration, swirling a comforting hand around his back.

"Yes," he was forced to agree with her, obligingly going on to explain how he'd eventually made the transition from hating Brat Girl to hating her a little less.

It was one afternoon toward the end of the summer: Brat Girl was napping on one side of the house while Tony was slumped in an armchair on the other, trying to decide which classes to register for in the Fall. His Mom had come in and stooped down to kiss his forehead goodbye, announcing that she was heading out for a doctor's appointment, then lunch with the girls, then probably a little shopping if she still felt up to it at that point. Not a minute after Lou had turned out of the driveway, however, the phone began to ring. It seemed that his Mom had somehow completely forgotten to mention that Tony was on babysitting detail, since there wasn't a soul in the house other than him and Olivia. Coincidentally enough, every Almeida employee — from nanny to housekeeper to gardener, right down to Paco the pool boy — had all found it unavoidably necessary to take the rest of that afternoon off for any number of fishy reasons.

Amid and despite her son's ensuing angry, panic-stricken protests and pleas, Amanda Almeida steamrolled ahead, breezily reciting a checklist of things he would need to remember, including the location of Brat Girl's Pampers, diaper disposal unit, baby wipes, lotions, powders, t-shirts, bibs, socks, hairbrush, and pacifier; how to heat the bottle and check the temperature of the milk before feeding it to her; when, why and how to position her against his diaper-shielded shoulder before gently patting her back; and so on.

"How the hell do ya spell that?" Tony had yelled into the phone in a panicky sweat, frantically scribbling out the list his Mom was rattling off. "'Pacifier'!... I don't know how to spell it!" greatly relieved when his Mom assured him that a misspell wouldn't hinder his ability to locate it.

The insensitive giggle that Michelle had allowed to slip from her throat was instantly met with a disapproving, stone-faced frown.

"It wasn't funny, Michelle!" he glared at her sternly. "I wasn't prepared for any of this, y'know."

"I was just... No, I'm sure you weren't, dear. It had to be terrifying for you. Go on... How did you ever manage... Go on, dear," she soothed him with a concerned frown and suspense-filled voice, biting the inside of her lips to prevent another blast of laughter from successfully making it over the wall.

He took a deep, brave breath before proceeding to elaborate upon the crippling fear that had consumed him the moment he'd hung up the phone, terrified that he might forget something, or do something wrong, or inadvertently break Brat Girl somehow. But much to Tony's relief, either the testosterone gods had been generous enough to assign some celestial brethren to guide him through that harrowing afternoon, or Brat Girl herself had decided to have mercy or pity on him, or both, and cut him a break for a refreshing change of pace.

For example, she had been good enough, he explained to Michelle, to subject him only to saturated Pampers and nothing more. She had laughed, rather than scream, when his fumbling fingers had accidentally sent powder flying all over the place. While brushing it out of her hair, she'd cooperatively gone along with his idea to style it into a mohawk, just like a Sioux warrior's, which actually came out looking better than he had anticipated, given how very little hair he had to work with. And later, as he slumped in his Mom's rocker, holding up the bottle while Brat Girl guzzled it down, she had handed him a totally unexpected compliment, fixating on his face in awe, like he was some sort of John Wayne, or something. She'd also been kind enough to grant his request to please not puke on him after he had finally remembered to pat her on the back about an hour after he was supposed to. It was the only thing he'd screwed up that entire afternoon.

As Michelle endeavored to praise his keen survival skills and overall performance, he was forced to humbly share the spotlight with Amanda Almeida, conceding full credit to her for having sagely hatched the perfect plan to forge the bonding process forward. Tony had found himself actually beginning to like Brat Girl after that day, and little more each day thereafter. He especially liked the way she gripped his pinky finger so tight and smiled up at him every time he'd grant her request to hum a few bars of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

And the rest was history.

Years later, however, that fateful day would arrive — Black Wednesday; he would never forget it — when Olivia, about ten at the time, would develop her first full-blown puppy-love crush on a boy at school. That's the day Tony's life took a sharp u-turn into the bowels of hell again.

"Honey, c'mon, now... Honey?" Michelle sought to console him in a tender voice.

"I can't talk about it any more. I'm sorry," he brooded, resisting her efforts to wrestle his fingers away from his forehead. "I'll just have to tell ya the rest some other time..."

"Honey," she tried again, doing everything in her power to maintain a straight face. "She was going to have to grow up at some point. Surely you had to know that."

"Yeah, well..." he responded, not the least bit comforted by her fingers gently stroking through his hair or the kisses she lightly landed around his cheek.

All those years he had played the role of a human Saint Bernard for her, never even once complaining when Olivia called him "Bruce," the name she had selected for him the night he'd volunteered to be her make-believe dog after her pediatrician had delivered the crushing news: that there wasn't enough allergy medication in the world that would allow Olivia to adopt a real, live puppy, like so many of her friends had. What's more, on top of his generous offer, Tony hadn't even put up much of an argument when Olivia decided to make him a Saint Bernard, despite all the time he'd invested on the internet trying to get her to buy into making him a Doberman Pinscher, instead; or a Rottweiler or Boxer, or any breed that was just a little more formidable and action-oriented than a lumbering, sad sack Saint Bernard. But Olivia had stubbornly stuck to her guns, eventually cutting a deal that would allow him to be a boy dog, but only if he agreed to be a Saint Bernard. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

"All this I did for her, and for what?" he demanded to know from Michelle, who was hard-pressed to answer the question at the moment, given her need to dash to the bathroom before she wet herself from laughing so hard inside.

It was all so Olivia could just toss him aside the second some short, skinny, acne-bound geek with a cracking voice came knocking at the door, whom inexplicably enough Olivia had decided was suddenly more fun and interesting to be around than him and Bruce, his alter-him.

"Then right behind the geek came the certified imbecile with the bike," Tony went on to bellow in the direction of the bathroom, describing how "the imbecile" never paid any attention to the rules of the road and could've easily gotten Olivia killed that time he let her ride on his ridiculous souped-up handlebars, with the streamers that looked like a girl's... And the village idiot with the mouthful of braces, who didn't even know a single name of a CUBS player, living or dead... The sex-crazed maniac who kissed Olivia in the movie theatre when she was only barely thirteen, which she couldn't stop talking about the entire next day, eventually compelling Tony to drop her off at the house early, and himself off at the nearest bar... Then came his personal favorite: the sensitive "poet" who eventually broke Olivia's heart when he all of a sudden decided he was gay, leaving it up to Tony to explain to her what that meant — a conversation he had yet to fully recover from.

"I'm getting a headache," he anguished, dropping his face into his hands on cue with Michelle's return from the bathroom.

"Lie down, dear. For Pete'ssake... You're doing this all to yourself," she assured him, hovering over him as she coaxed him onto his back and tucked a couch pillow beneath his head. "And right before your movie, too... Do you really want to watch the Navarone Guns with a headache?... Hmmm?"

God Almighty, why couldn't she just get that title straight. It was like she was begging the testosterone gods to mow her down with a special-delivery lightening bolt. And, just his luck, he'd be standing close enough to get himself caught in the crossfire; he could just see it coming.

"I need cake," he moaned through pained eyes, figuring he might as well capitalize on the sympathy he had succeeded in garnering.

"You're not getting that carrot cake, dear," she calmly assured him for the umpteenth time as she headed toward the kitchen. "I'll get you some aspirin, but as far as..."

"This is not an aspirin kind of headache, Michelle!" he angrily mewled, draping his forearm across his eyes in the hopes of guilting her into at least giving him half of it. "These are permanent scars I'm living with, y'know."

"They're not permanent," she called back to him, swearing she had seen a bottle of aspirin in one the drawers while tidying up the kitchen that morning. "You just haven't come to terms with the fact that you're no longer the center of her universe, dear. Five years from now, after you've become better accustomed to men entering and exiting her life, you'll feel entirely differently about things, I can guarantee you..."

Michelle, just like everybody else, simply didn't get it. But he swallowed the aspirin and nevertheless tried to explain to her that it wasn't about guys entering into Olivia's life; it was about being roundly shut out of her life from the minute that first geek had happened along. Out the window flew all those collective hours he'd spent following her around as she crawled through the yard, reminding her not to eat the grass; the back-breaking hours of hunching over so she could use his two index fingers as human handlebars while efforting to perfect her walking technique; the countless kinks in his back, and the cramps in his thighs, from walking around with her standing on his foot and holding onto his leg, frequently up to an hour at a time; and the Brownie meetings... Oh, God, all those boring-as-hell Brownie and Girl Scouts meetings he sat through, just in case some pervert or serial killer, or perverted serial killer, lived in or around the Troop Leader's house — that lone, courteous, gentleman psychopath whom no one in the family or neighborhood "would've ever suspected in a million years," as the newspapers would always quote, like clockwork, at the conclusion of every manhunt.

The zillions of toys and dream houses and bicycles he'd mindlessly assembled... All those important things in life he had taught her over the years, like how to still get a decent bubble going even long after the Bubblicious was all chewed out... The idiotic books he'd read to her a hundred times, half of which had never even made any sense the first time around; the science projects he'd helped her construct, always only too happy to take the heat whenever something would unexpectedly ignite; the emasculating hours spent on the floor being "Ken," a guy so boring that even Barbie eventually tossed in the beach towel and dumped him.

By the close of his tragic self-portrayal, Michelle seemed terribly moved and impressed by his courageousness, nobility, and endless selfless sacrifices. She even commented that she thought he had the natural-born makings of a wonderful father — an astute observation with which he found himself humbly hard-pressed to argue.

"Lesser men than you have been nominated for sainthood, dear," she also assured him.

"I'm aware of that," he responded, quietly sipping his coffee and suffering in silence while mentally reviewing all those saints he'd learned about during the zillions of catechism lessons he'd also stood guard over in the church basement, just in case some strung-out junkie came bursting into the room in search of the weekly collections. No one would likely ever understand the full depths of his generosity over the years, or the gravity of pain he'd quietly suffered, or the selfless lengths he would nonetheless continue to go to ensure Olivia's overall safety and happiness, even if she didn't appreciate any of it. He was just that kind of guy.

"More coffee, honey?" she offered.

"Y'know, you wouldn't even have that carrot cake if I hadn't wrapped it the napkin and stuck it my pocket at the last second," he thought he would mention.

"You're not getting the cake, dear," she calmly reassured him.

"Fine, fine..." he replied, thoroughly annoyed, but pretending like he couldn't care less if he tried.

"I'll be happy to get you more coffee, but..."

"Nah, that's all right... What good is drinking coffee, anyway, when ya could be eating cake instead, as the old saying goes."

Michelle closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.

She hadn't exactly made the strongest coffee he'd ever tasted in his life, he noted to himself, adding it to the "beverages" section of his mental list, directly below his "Courvoisier, not Frangelica" notation. True, there was so very much to teach her, but as his heart warmed over, gazing at the way the Duke's horse Dollar's flannel ear erotically followed the lines of the curves beneath it, he realized he had the rest of their lives to teach her the things she needed to know, like how to go about properly measuring and grinding his beans.

He took her coffee cup out of her hands and laid it beside his own on the hassock, then eased her down onto her side and drew her in for a serious kissing session. Her lips and mouth tasted so sweet from all the cream and sugar she used. He reminded himself to kiss her right after she finished eating that carrot cake, provided she ever got around to it.

Lost in the warm embrace of her lips, he suddenly ached to walk Michelle through a fantasy of his own — one of the tamer of his favorite top-forty — the same way she had guided him through her own the night before. He cursed the estrogen goddesses for deciding to exercise their visitation rights upon her this weekend, of all times. Covertly checking his watch, he saw that he even had just enough time to pull it off, too, before it would become respectably dark enough outside to safely roll out The Guns.

But because he had somehow been mercifully spared having to engage in a conversation of that nature in his past, he really wasn't sure about the lovemaking rules governing off-days like this and felt self-conscious and a little weird about even asking.

"Whatever it is you've got on your mind, ya might as well spit it out before you kill off too many more brain cells, dear," Michelle suggested. "You know you're only gonna come out with it sooner or later anyway."

"Nah, it's nothing," he softly assured her, placing his arms against her back and across her thighs, turning over and settling her on top of himself again. "I was just wondering when you were gonna tell me about your own family…"

"Well, there really isn't much to tell outside of what you already know from my file… but that's not what was on your mind," she promptly busted him, sitting up and pushing his CUBS t-shirt away enough to reveal the slender trail of hair between his chest and commemorative waistband.

"Okay, I'll give ya that," he confessed, feeling his gut clutching from the ticklish feeling her fingertip generated as it dragged down along his skin. "I was actually just trying to figure out... Geeziz, baby..."

She giggled as he slapped away the fingertip she'd deposited inside his navel, possibly the most torturously ticklish spot on his body.

"... to figure out why ya haven't been bugging me all day to tell ya which movie I got for ya."

"I've been too afraid to ask," she truthfully replied. "But that's not what you were thinking about either. I can tell, y'know."

"Ya can, huh?" he chuckled. "Okay, fine. Ya want me to tell ya want I was really thinking?... Fine, then. I was thinking about the kitchen cabinets, wondering if we had all the ingredients for you to make me a cake," he grinned.

She cocked her head and eyed him suspiciously.

"Uhh... no."

"Y'mean, 'no,' that's not what I was thinking about? Or 'no,' you don't wanna make me a cake?"

"'No,' that's not what you were thinking about, and 'no,' you really don't want me to make you a cake, and you know it," she said a little sharply.

"Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me," she said, crossing her arms tightly over her chest and looking away with annoyance and embarrassment.

"I don't understand," he said, squishing his brow and eyeing her in confusion.

"Ah-huh... Who directed you to it? Wait, don't tell me. Carrie, right? Am I right?" she sneered, now clearly annoyed, without a doubt.

"Directed me to what, honey?" he asked, watching her face growing pinker and decidedly more pinched by the second.

"I don't even know why it's in there. It's not like I was some — some militant radical making some kind of time-bomb..."

"Huh?" he frowned, now thoroughly confused. "Honey..."

"I didn't even want to take that stupid class. I told them right up front that I wasn't any good at it. But would they let me take Machine Shop instead? _Heck_, no! That's for boys!" she ranted, glaring bitterly off in the distance.

"Okay, sweetheart, you're gonna hafta stop now. Truly, I don't know what the hell you're talking about..." he said, unhooking her arms from across her chest and holding her by the wrists. "Honey... Honey, look at me and tell — Michelle? Tell me what the hell you're so mad about. I don't know what the—"

"My file, dear!" she turned and barked at him. "The file that _I_ know that _you_ know that _I_ know that _you read_, your pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding."

"I read about a page and a half of it, Michelle. You were obviously qualified for the position... Over-qualified, if anything. I didn't read beyond the departments you worked in at Division. So whatever you're talking about... about... radicals and bombs and stuff... Are ya trying to tell me you were a radical feminist in high school 'cause they wouldn't let you into a guy's class, or something?"

His tone sounded sufficiently frustrated and confused for Michelle to cautiously eyeball him over a second time.

"You're saying you don't know?" she dead-eyed him, prying her wrists loose and recrossing her arms over her chest.

"Know what, Michelle?" he said, taking a deep, genuinely exasperated breath.

"About the accident?… In Home-Ec? The newspaper clipping... with the picture?"

"What picture?"

"The hole? ... The big hole in the side of the building. You're telling me you know nothing of this, correct? ... Is this what you're telling me?"

"Do ya— Would ya like to get in the car right now and go down to the office and give me a polygraph? I'll take a polygraph, Michelle," he assured her with a frustrated bark. "I don't know anything about any damned hole in the wall, or Home-Econom—" He stopped short. His eyes widened and stared for a second.

"You blew a hole in the wall in your Home Economics class?" he asked in amazement.

She pinched her brow and her lips and looked away again, her cheeks blushing furiously out of control.

"Did ya really?"

"Yes! Okay?... It was an _accident_, for petes'sake, okay? Millions of people have _accidents _every single day of the week, all right?" she snapped, climbing off his stomach and onto her feet. "Why don't ya just go read the stupid article, like everyone else in America did? You can even see what I looked like at age sixteen... provided ya feel you have the stomach for it."

"You're kidding," he insensitively added in stunned astonishment. "Was it a cement wall?... Brick?... What?... Michelle, c'mere... Where are ya going, honey?" he asked, scrambling to his feet and trailing her into the kitchen, watching her throw on the cold tap before systematically opening and banging cabinet doors shut in a fury, muttering under her breath.

"You wouldn't happen to know where I could find a stupid glass around here, would ya?" she barked at him.

"Calm down, baby. What do ya want?" he said softly, trying to soothe her. "Ya want a glass of water? I'll get it for ya, sweetheart..."

"I know how to get a glass of water, thank you," she snapped, continuing to bang the doors around. "I can even do it without blowing a hole in your wall, if that's what you're concerned about."

"Okay, honey, that's it... C'mon, now..." he said, calmly catching her wrist in mid-slam and turning her gently around to him, having to hold back a chuckle from the sight of how remarkably crimson her cheeks had grown. She tried to squirm away at first, but decided to just let him put his arms around her. There wasn't much she could do about it, so she stood there with her own arms clenched in a tight crisscross and her forehead flat against his chest, patiently waiting to be released.

"What set this whole thing off, anyway? Huh?" he asked softly, trying to coax her to look up at him. "Hmmm?... It was that cake I was talking about making, right?"

She refused to answer. He leaned his chin against the top of her head and gently swayed her stiff, rigid body back and forth in an easy, almost dancing manner, trying to lighten things up a bit. He smiled broadly, relieved for a chance to get it out of his system while she couldn't see, and praying that an actual laugh wouldn't eventually escape.

"C'mon, baby, talk to me, huh?" he gently coaxed her, feeling her body shift a bit as if preparing to make a break for it as soon an opportunity availed itself. He tightened his hold just a bit and intuitively moved his feet apart, just a little wider, knowing he'd be better perched and balanced to snatch her back if she bolted. "Why don't you tell me what actually happened, instead of the way they reported it. They probably got it all screwed up and made it sound twice as bad than it was... They sensationalize stories just to sell papers, y'know."

Still not a word, although he did get a barely noticeable sigh out of her, as though his words rang only a little too painfully true for her. He gave it another minute, continuing to sway-dance slowly and easily, keeping his fingers strategically locked behind her.

"I'll bet you they made it sound like you were the one making the cake, too, when it was probably a whole group of you... or even the whole class..."

Another small sigh, which was a good sign. He tried using his chin to nudge her head back a little, but no dice. She was keeping her forehead solidly glued flat against his chest, and that was that.

"I'll bet it wasn't the first accident that ever occurred in that class, either," he persevered.

She seemed to respond positively to the word "accident," sighing a bit more deeply and noticeably this time. He softly hummed a bar of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, remembering how soothing Olivia always used to find it. Michelle seemed to like it herself, or at least she didn't seem to hate it, so he went for a second bar.

"Y'know, Home-Economics is not the easiest class in the world, too. I remember my friend Eddie's sister telling some pretty hair-raising stories about the sewing they made her do. It seemed they had all these old machines that they never oiled, like they should have, and that... that round thing on the end... What do ya call it? It used to start smoking, and sparks would fly out occasionally and leave all these weird little holes all over the thing she was making."

"The drive wheel," Michelle muttered, barely audibly.

"The wheel. Right," he said in shock, though maintaining his consistently smooth, easy tone. "Then the teacher goes and gives Eddie's sister a bad grade because of all those little—"

"The 'drive' wheel, if you wanted to be accurate about it," she brooded, still refusing to move a muscle.

"Drive wheel... Huh... Guess the joke's on them. Ya sound like ya know a little something about machines. Ya probably would've been good at Machine Shop..."

She shrugged.

"Anyway, so Eddie's sister says to the—"

"I'd like to see one of those boys try to operate a sewing machine. They probably wouldn't even know where to begin," she scoffed bitterly, allowing her head to slightly rearrange itself to the side now.

He was definitely making progress, but this was going take a while.

He strained his eyes hard to the left, catching a look at the clock. It was respectably dark enough now. The Guns could officially roll. He never thought he'd hear himself think it, but Greg, Tony, Tony and the boys were just going to have to wait a bit. Michelle came first.

He would loosen her up some more; get her to tell him her version of events; maybe they'd romantically crack into her file together so he could read the article, ridicule the obvious hype, and affirm that, as far as he could glean from the stated facts, the explosion certainly didn't appear to be exclusively her fault, whether it was or wasn't. It would make her feel better, he knew, to lay out the details, have somebody nod in agreement, and show some support for her side of the story, possibly even for the first time since the wall had gone flying. Plus, he was itching to read the article to find out how a hole could be blown through concrete or brick with cake ingredients. The information might well prove invaluable to him in the field someday. One never knew.

Something he did know for certain, however, was that The Guns wouldn't be worth watching unless Michelle was happy, alert, attentive, and on her game. It was his favorite movie and he was dying to see if her razor-sharp mind would zero in on the one and only ever-so-slight plot defect in the entire movie: the claim that Davey Nivens made, insisting that someone among them had tampered with his highly volatile vials of nitroglycerin. Were that the case, the vials would've exploded, which Tony, Tony, or Tony would doubtlessly have noticed; plus, the traitor wouldn't exactly still be standing among them in the room, but making a second swing around Pluto at that point.

Michelle would indubitably pick right up on that, Tony was confident. Especially now that he knew she had some background in explosives.


	11. His Friend

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 11- His Friend_

"I used to think that if dogs could talk, they'd probably make fun of me, too," Michelle wept hard into her handful of wadded-up tissues.

"Ah, honey, c'mon. I don't think ya looked geeky at all," Tony assured her, staring in stunned disbelief at the printout of the article featuring a photo of Michelle as a sixteen-year-old, inset into a larger picture of the gaping hole in the brick wall, with the local Fire Chief standing inside the school looking out through the hole and waving to the camera.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better," she swallowed hard amid her gulps.

"Don't be silly, honey. You're being way too tough on yourself. If I went to school with you, I would've asked ya out," he said, pulling a few more tissues from the box on the floor beside him and holding them out to her, his eyes remaining fixated on the chubby face with the short, frizzy, out-of-control hair staring back up at him from the printout. Perhaps if it were ten years from now he might casually remark about how it reminded him a little of a red-headed Harpo Marx, but intuitively knew that now was not the time to mention it.

"I sort of doubt that. You probably would've gone out with Muffy Engle. Everybody else did," she sniffled, dabbing her eyes again, catching the fresh stream of tears that involuntarily poured out. "Hussy..." she muttered under her breath between gulps as she tried to get her crying under control. "I used to call her Hussy Engle."

"Well, see, honey? Right there it shows you were creative. Creative people aren't geeks. Everybody knows that," he comforted her, breaking off another chunk of the carrot cake balancing on his lap in the dinner napkin he'd stolen from the restaurant. "Besides," he chewed, "I could never go out with somebody named Muffy. Who names a kid that, anyway?" he asked, briefly recalling Muffy Schneider and how she used to take his breath away when she'd bounce around on the high school football field, leading the cheerleading squad. It was the only reason he ever went to the games.

"I thought they tormented me enough before the accident,but after—hah!" she painfully reminisced, addressing her mutterings as much to herself as to him. A fresh tributary of tears streamed down her cheeks. She blew her nose hard into the tissues Tony had handed her, dropping the old handful into the wastepaper basket he'd earlier fetched and parked at her side.

"Are ya sure you don't want me to make a run to the pharmacy for those aloe ones?" he generously offered, praying she'd decline again and injecting a little extra pain into his expression to help ensure that she did. "I could be back in ten minutes, y'know."

"Thank you, dear, but these will do fine," Michelle lied, feeling herself aging a year with every contact the untreated tissues made upon the super-sensitive epidermis surrounding the eye region. She nonetheless tried to force an appreciative smile through her tears, only to suddenly burst into a whole new round of uncontrollable gut-wrenching sobs.

"Aw, honey, c'mon," Tony said in a soft, sympathetic voice, rewrapping and tucking the last chunk of cake into his t-shirt pocket, then pushing his back away from the lower doors of the kitchen cabinets.

Giving the tissue box a push across the floor in Michelle's direction, he got on all fours and crawled over to sit beside her, positioning his back against the smooth surface of the refrigerator: a welcome relief from the cabinet's handles that had been jabbing him in the shoulder blades up to that point.

"How can I get ya to stop this, huh?" he asked in a gentle, soothing tone, sandwiching her hand between his. "Look at yourself, honey. You're eyes are getting all sore and swollen... Why do you let those people get ya all upset like that, huh? They aren't even worth it, for cryssake."

He'd always hated when women cried. He never knew what to do and often wondered how long it would take enemy nations to catch a clue and replace their troops with full armies of unarmed women under orders to just stand there and cry. U.S. troops would be rendered totally useless, staring wide-eyed at each other as they scrambled to take up a collection of tissues, tie them to sticks, and promptly surrender with the promise to spill their guts if only the women would just stop crying.

"I'm sorry," she gulped, trying her best to collect herself, though dismally failing.

"Here. You should be eating this," he said, pulling the last bite of cake from his pocket and unwrapping it. "It'll make ya feel better."

"No, honey, you need it for your headache," she sniffled, thinking again of how sweet he had been when the downloaded image came out of the printer and she'd run to the kitchen in humiliation, having forgotten just how bad her hair had looked back then, and how viciously Hussy Engle and her immaculately coifed in-crowd of Farrah Fawcett look-alikes used to relentlessly torment her.

"I can't believe you won't even go to your high school reunion just because a bunch of losers used to give ya a hard time," he said, popping the last chunk of cake into his mouth before she had a chance to reconsider his offer. "You should go and show yourself off to them. I'll bet ya anything that Muffy's a whale now, with a bunch of snotty kids and a nowhere job."

"You think?" Michelle looked up at him with a glitter of hope in her eyes.

"Sure, honey. It'll drive her crazy when she sees that you've only gotten prettier over the years while she's been chowing down on all that stuff they taught in Home-Economics... Take me with you," he added as the bright idea occurred to him. "It'll make ya look even better and drive her crazier," he guaranteed, eliciting the first semblance of a smile he'd seen on Michelle's face since making the tragic mistake of raising the subject of cake.

"You would go?" she sniffled and dabbed.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I," he snorted, drawing her hand up and sealing a light kiss against her fingers. "I'll even start a fight with one of the guys, if ya like. And then you can arrest us and show all those losers what ya do for a living."

Her eyes widened from swollen slits to nearly their normal size.

"You would do that for me?" she asked, overwhelmed by the sensation of her heart tripling in size as she gazed at her knight, her hero, wondering how someone as unlucky as she could've ever managed to hit the jackpot like this.

"Sure, baby. Ya can draw your weapon, and everything. Put us up against the wall and read us the riot act. Let us off with a warning. See how geeky those people think ya are after that," he scoffed, feeling himself growing a little hot under the collar just thinking about the gall of those people treating Michelle like a social pariah and hurting her, still, after all these years. "Hmm?... Promise me you'll at least think about it, okay?" he nudged her.

"I will," she said in a small voice, feeling her eyes beginning to dry considerably. "Do ya really think it could've happened to anyone?" she asked for at least the tenth time, just wanting to hear him go on again about how the newspapers had so obviously sensationalized the story. "Did ya notice how they didn't even report how illegible the labeling on the container was?"

"Of course I noticed. That was the first thing that leapt out at me," he responded in wholehearted support, gazing at the loin-warming vision of Michelle's silky black panties as she crawled over to his old cabinet-door perch to retrieve the printout of the article he'd left on the floor. "That's how they do it. They leave out half the story. See — gimme that for a second, honey — See right here?" he pointed as Michelle sat back against the refrigerator, wrapping her arms around her knees and leaning her cheek against his shoulder, peering at the article. "They deliberately make it sound like ya knew all along it was industrial floor polish."

"I know," she scowled with a ring of bitterness in her voice. "Like I wasn't smart enough to know the difference between that and cooking oil. No mention, you'll notice, that they kept the cooking ingredients in the same exact containers and in the same closet as the janitor's cleaning supplies."

"My point all along," he reiterated. "Ya should've been angry over this deliberately misleading coverage, honey, not hurt by it. Anybody with half a brain could see that the reporter was going out of his way to distort the facts and chain of events and everything in-between."

"That's what my Aunt Hildie said," she sniffled, this time with a frown, rethinking the wisdom of having allowed herself to carry the burden of so much pain and embarrassment over the course of so many years.

"See that? Great minds think alike," he said, resting his case. "So, listen... Why don't ya go throw some water in your face, and I'll pour us some wine and stick on that movie I got for ya, okay?... Go on, honey," he cajoled. "It'll make ya feel better."

"But what about The Navarone Guns?" she asked in surprise.

"It's not going anywhere," he flinched. "Besides, we've got the whole rest of the night to watch it, right? Ya didn't make plans to meet up with some other guy later on, or anything, did ya?" he frowned with feigned suspicion and jealousy, bumping his shoulder against hers. "Did ya?"

"No," she giggled, suddenly feeling a little silly for having become so upset.

"Better not have," he gave her fair warning in a stern voice, getting to his feet. "Break my heart and you're gonna be in big trouble with me, woman."

He watched her face half-beam and half-blush as he pulled her up by her hands and steered her off in the direction of the bathroom with a light pat to her flannel haunches.

"Go on," he said softly, crossing his arms and mindlessly chewing his bottom lip, drinking in the view of The Duke heading into the west with Dollar's flanks moving in concert with Michelle's graceful gait. He envisioned her little black panties beneath the animated artwork and wondered how a guy so unlucky at love as he could've ever managed to come across a woman like her. It was true what he had told her earlier: he'd indeed fallen in love with her within the first few moments of meeting her. He could honestly and willingly admit it, now, in hindsight and retrospect.

Stooping over to gather some crumpled tissues that hadn't made it into the wastepaper basket, he picked up the printout and hesitated before dropping it into the receptacle, deciding to fold it in half and stash it away somewhere. Maybe he would bring it along with him to Michelle's high school reunion and find somebody's throat to cram it down; it might be the perfect way to start that fight he'd promised her. He would decide when the time came — if the time came. He first had to run down Muffy Engle's DMV photo and check the latest stats of her weight, then crack into her IRS records. If she looked like a babe and had a successful career going for herself, he would concoct a reason to skip the reunion, even if he had to fake an old war injury to keep them home.

As he pulled a bottle of his favorite California fume blanc from the refrigerator, he kissed Mrs. Sanchez in his mind for having remembered to chill a few, then made love to her on the floor when he discovered that she'd also put two wineglasses in the freezer to ice. That woman thought of everything, he sighed. It was like still living at home with a mother, only one who never complained about anything he did, or bugged him about marriage and grandchildren, either.

He poured a glass to share with Michelle and took a long, icy sip. A moment later, he found himself experiencing the oddest feeling of déjà vu as he placed Michelle's movie, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," into the DVD tray, feeling like he'd watched his hand making that very same move in the past. He knew that was impossible, however, and shrugged the odd sensation off, sprawling himself out on his side and down the length of the couch. He perched his head against one hand and aimed the remote control with the other, smiling at the positive reception he already knew his brilliant selection would receive.

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" was one of the few love movies he could stomach and the first film he'd thought of when he'd entered the video store that morning. He grinned, remembering how much trouble he'd had locating the Classics section and focusing on the movie titles, his mind feverish with memories of just a few short hours earlier when his life had changed. He remembered how tingly his lips had felt, as if her skin were still against them; how he could still taste the remnants of her flavors clinging to his tongue; the way her lingering scents, intermingling with his own, had become so pronounced and accentuated by the sweat he'd worked up in the pharmacy. It had compelled him to nervously glance around the store, wondering if anyone would be able to detect the telltale fragrance that seemed to be wafting from every sector of his body. He'd even closed a couple of buttons on his jacket, hoping to corral the carnal scents, grateful that the jacket hung just low enough to conceal the other problem that had arisen from recalling how her fragrances had come to burrow into his pores in the first place.

The time he would always normally spend talking and cuddling and saying clever post-coitus things to his bed-partner du jour had been spent in stunned silence, instead, clinging tightly, almost desperately, to each other. Words had seemed woefully and laughably inadequate, so they'd spoken with their eyes, in astonished gazes, and with small kisses to the spots they'd missed before: inside palms; between fingers; against eyelids, wrists, knuckles... He'd kissed her teeth. Her fingertips had petted and apologized to the scar on his eyebrow for not having been there to soothe it, back when the injury had occurred. He'd buried his face in the crook of her neck, seeking shelter from his past and safety from the outside world. She'd drawn tears from him that he would have ordinarily felt loath to show any other woman, for fear of telegraphing his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He remembered the moment she had taken possession of him. He had known on the spot the second he had become her property — or, rather, when he had willingly handed every fiber of his being over to her. He hadn't been brave enough to vocalize it then, but from the precise moment they'd fallen off the cliff together, he knew that they would forever be bound in perpetuity.

It seemed like a week ago, now, since all of that had happened, although it hadn't even been an entire day, he reflected in amazement. Time felt different, like the space-time continuum had gone off kilter. Although their relationship appeared to be moving at an accelerated pace on one hand, time was crawling so mercifully slowly on the other. There were so many new feelings and awarenesses crammed into every passing minute that an hour felt more like a day to him. But whatever the cause or explanation for the recent warp in time and space, he cherished and relished the peaceful, relaxing, full evening awaiting them. He was even looking forward to hearing Michelle squeal and chatter to her heart's content throughout her movie, as he instinctively knew she would, and was also somewhat amazed to find that it barely even bothered him to have to wait to see The Guns.

Michelle finally emerged from the bathroom puffy-eyed, but a great deal cheerier, much to his relief.

"C'mere, baby," he said, patting his chest with the remote, gesturing for her to stretch out in front of him. "Didn't I tell ya you'd feel better throwing some water on your face?"

"Yes," she admitted with a weak smile, still feeling a little foolish for having allowed herself to become so upset in the first place.

"See? This should go to show ya that you need to start listening to me more often," he self-confidently asserted, kissing her curls as she nestled in against him.

"You're right, as usual, dear," she commended him with a chuckle to herself, pushing a little further back to meld and seal their angles and curves together. Once comfortably settled in, Tony reached over her shoulder and hit the "play" button.

"Oh, my God! I can't believe it!... I haven't seen this since I was... oh, my God, like, ten or eleven, or something!" Michelle shrieked in delight, instantly straining her head back to kiss him and giggling at the small, though hugely proud, smile that met her as he stooped his head down to peck her lips.

He had first seen "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" as a small boy when his grandfather, who adored Gene Tierney enough to qualify as a stalker, had taken him to an offbeat film festival featuring three back-to-back movies from the actress's 1940's heyday. But it was the salty, macho seaman, played by Rex Harrison, who'd captivated Tony from the minute he made his first ghostly appearance on the screen. Tony was instantly enthralled by the way the dashing, short-tempered Captain Gregg continually barked at "Lucia" and got away with it, rarely ever catching any grief from her. He'd also marveled at how entrancingly mild-mannered, feminine, and even-tempered Lucia was, taking each of the Captain's outbursts and tantrums in stride and with a grain of salt, much the way Michelle tolerated his own foibles and flare-ups.

Michelle reminded him a lot of Gene Tierney in facial features as well. He would tell her that later on, after they'd gone to bed. He would also tell her about how "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" had contained the first incredibly erotic scene he'd ever been exposed to on the silver screen — the part when Captain Gregg made himself invisible while Lucia was changing into her nightgown. It was meant to be nothing more than a whimsical, lighthearted moment in the movie, but Tony remembered having walked around in a daze for a week afterward, fantasizing about all the exciting things he could witness if only he were invisible. It was enough to make him want to die young, beeline it back to Earth, and move his transparent self directly into the bedroom of Patty Lowenstein, the eleven-year-old girl down the block who always made him stutter incoherently whenever she'd say hello to him.

"See? Do I know what you like, or what?" Tony boasted, sinking his teeth into Michelle's neck, delighting in how it made her scrunch her shoulder in self-defense and giggle wildly out of control as she pleaded with him to stop.

"Yes... yes, you do!" she howled, wondering way back in the non-ticklish section of her brain if he had any idea of how very much he knew exactly what she liked and precisely how she liked it.

"So ya gonna start listening to me now?... Huh?" he tortured her a little further, clamping down on her neck again and going in for the kill with an unexpected assault of his fingertips against her ultra-ticklish ribcage.

"Stop!... Pleeeeeaaassseee... Yes, I will! I will!" she shrieked, protectively curling her body into a tight ball as she futilely tried to pry his fingers away from her ribs.

"Planning on touching the remote tonight... or ever?" he just thought he'd check.

"Noooooo!... Noooooo, I swear!" she wailed, feeling only moments away from having to make a mad scramble to the bathroom if he didn't stop making her laugh so hard.

"Alright, then," he said with a satisfied smirk, releasing his death-lock on her neck and resting his hand against her panting stomach.

"You just wait," she threatened, leaving him to live in stark fear of the surprise attack she would perpetrate upon him at a time when he least expected it. He snickered. The only fear he had was of the enemy ever getting hold of Michelle. Two minutes of rib-tickling and every state secret she'd ever been sworn to safeguard with her life would be splashed all over the front page of the Radical Islamic Terrorist Times the following morning.

"I'm petrified," he guaranteed her, kissing her flushed cheek. She nestled back in and refocused on the movie, her fingers mindlessly attaching themselves to his, squeezing and interlocking and jostling them every time she sought to punctuate a point throughout her ceaseless blow-by-blow commentary of each and every ensuing scene. Tony shook his head. He knew it: He could always smell a movie-talker from a mile away.

In the midst of Michelle's uncontrollable giggling over Captain Gregg's giving Lucia's in-laws an invisible bum's rush out the door, followed by her incessant chatter about how much the mother-in-law reminded her of her Aunt Gert, Tony reached for the wine glass on the hassock and brought it to her lips, luxuriating in the three seconds of blissful quiet that filled the room while she took a sip, only to promptly pick right back up on the word she had left off on as soon as he lowered the glass from her lips. He tilted his head back and guzzled down a long, low sip, trying to remember a time when he'd ever felt so relaxed, contented, and crazed all at the same time.

Just to make him a little crazier, the phone rang from the kitchen counter across the room, compelling him to try to remember a time when he'd ever felt so utterly aggravated.

"Damn," he growled, convinced he was destined to spend the entirety of his CTU career worrying about whether every incoming call was work-related, then feeling his gut clutch upon recognizing that the call was indeed coming in from the office. Much to his enormous relief, however, it turned out to be nothing more than the new kid, Adam, calling in his first satellite report on Olivia and Gerald, as Tony had earlier phoned from the restaurant and instructed him to do.

"If you're gonna trust her, you've gotta go all the way," Michelle gently reminded him as he rolled over her and replanted himself against the back of the couch.

"I trust no one," he stated over-dramatically in his favorite dark, deep-undercover black-operative voice. "Gimme," he said, pursing his lips and nudging the side of her face until she turned her head and schmushed her lips over just enough for him to reach them, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"I don't know how Lucia manages to maintain such a calm demeanor," Michelle indignantly prattled on, catching her curls on his beard every time she shook her head with displeasure at Uncle Neddy's heavy-handed come-on tactics.

"Uh-huh," he robotically responded every two sentences or so, occasionally leaning in to kiss her cheek until the phone rang once again, instantly wrecking his mood.

"Geeziz, what now," he moaned, rolling over her and darting back to the counter. Michelle watched as he closed his eyes and shook his head in disbelief, scratching some fresh groves into both his forehead and his cheek while grumbling a few quick "yeahs" and "okays" before wrapping up with a terse "I'll be right down."

"Oh, no! Am I being called in, too?" Michelle gasped in disbelief, getting up to follow him into the bedroom where he hurriedly slid himself into some jeans. "I don't even have anything to wear!"

"Nah, baby, it's just some kinda altercation going on in the lobby," he answered, unsuccessfully trying to conceal his aggravation as he yanked on a pair of socks. "They think I'm the damned security guard around here, for cryssake. They oughta give me this place for free, for all the times they've... Do ya see my shoes around anywhere, honey?"

"I'll go with you," Michelle volunteered, retrieving the shoes from the last place a man would ever think to look: the closet.

"No, you stay here. It's just some jerk causing a commotion," he grumbled, though pausing to grab his weapon from the night table drawer just in case the situation turned out to be a little something more than that.

He kissed her quickly before heading out the door, promising to be back in a minute and telling her to go on with the movie without him. She sighed and placed it on "pause" instead, just in case he was gone for awhile, then carried the wineglass to the refrigerator and placed it on the shelf to re-chill. She contemplated eating something just to pass the time, but wasn't really in the mood, so decided to snoop around the kitchen to see if she could find his stash of M&M's. But before she had even barely begun her search, Tony was pounding on the door, calling for her to open up. Assuming he had forgotten his keys, Michelle swung it open and immediately stepped back in shock at the sight of a huge, burly, unkempt-looking Hell's Angels-type man following Tony through the door, directly on his heels.

"What's going on?" she asked with a wild-eyed stare. Her first thought was that a gun was being held to Tony's back. But another step through the doorway revealed a woozy, enormously pregnant woman passed out in the biker's grimy arms, whom Michelle assumed to be his "old lady," given her matching leather-and-chains ensemble and the "Animal's Old Lady" tattoo running vertically down the length of her dangling arm.

"Easy, Petey," Tony coached as the massive hulk strained to lower his better half onto the couch without dropping her, or giving himself a hernia. Michelle's eyes widened even further upon realizing that Tony knew the man by name, then felt her heart rate begin to ease, figuring it was probably safer that he did.

"Grab her some water, honey?" Tony asked, gathering the woman's ankles and lifting her feet onto to the couch, taking note of Michelle's dazed expression as she tucked a pillow under Animal's Old Lady's head. "Umm... Pete, this is Michelle..." he said, introducing two of the most mismatched people presently inhabiting the earth. Petey nodded politely, fixating on what Michelle was convinced was her breasts, though the two flannel Indian corpses covering them were what Petey was actually gazing at.

"Damn, thems about two of the sorriest-looking dead-ass suckers I ever seen," he remarked in a booming voice, evidently incapable of articulating his thoughts at any decibel level lower than max. Mortally insulted, Michelle frowned angrily and immediately crisscrossed her arms over her breasts. Petey sheepishly dropped his eyes to the ground. He couldn't imagine what he had said to evoke such a furious reaction from his best buddy's girlfriend, leaving him to assume that she must be one of those super-sensitive, politically correct tree-hugger types who set up picket lines around anyone who dared to say "Indian" instead of "Native American," or something. Not wanting to cause any trouble, however, he apologetically muttered "sorry" to Michelle at the top of his lungs and turned his attention back to Tony.

"I stopped at the house, but there wasn't nobody there but some broad who wouldn't let us in," Petey roared. "She even threatened to shoot me... I didn't know where else to go, Tony."

"An emergency room is always a good place under the circumstances," Tony gently reminded him, stooping over to lightly pat the woman's cheek in an attempt to bring her around.

"I remembered you got that medic training in the Marines, so, y'know... I figured maybe you'd know why she got all dizzy and shit," Petey boomed, shrugging his massive shoulders and setting off a musical clanging of the various chains attached to his putrid leather vest.

"Probably 'cause she's hardly in any condition to be hanging off the back of a bike, Pete. What the hell were ya thinking, anyway?" Tony asked rhetorically, concluding with a safe amount of certainty that Petey probably hadn't been thinking at all. "Ya can't fool around with this kinda thing, y'know..."

Petey stuffed his jailhouse-tattooed fingers into the pockets of his filthy jeans and looked down over his beer belly to the floor, the same way he always did when they were kids and he'd broken the law for the fourth time that day, ashamed of himself for disappointing such good folks as the Almeidas, the only people who'd ever treated him like family.

"What's her name?" Tony asked after conducting a quick check of the woman's vitals.

"Tits," Petey thundered, provoking his common-law mama to stir and Michelle to bang her head on a shelf inside the refrigerator.

"I'm not calling her that, Pete. What's her real name," Tony said, hearing a "tsk" in Michelle's eyes without even having to look over at her. But he did anyway, just to assure her with his own eyes that everything was fine and that he'd explain it all later.

"I dunno. She only said it once and that was years ago, man... Sabrina, maybe?... Sarina?"

"Where the fuck am I?" the woman muttered groggily in response to the sound of her name roaring out of the Animal's lungs, bringing a light blush to Michelle's cheeks as she handed a glass of water to Tony, watching as he raised the back of the woman's head and tilted the glass against her lips.

"Ya scared the shit outta me when ya almost fell off the back like that," Petey roared at his beloved. "I go to the hassle of stealing that sissy bar and ya don't even try to hold on!"

"Suck my dick," the woman poetically directed, still a little groggy but eagerly accepting another sip of water from Tony. "If ya got me a Happy Meal, like I asked, I wouldn'ta fainted in the first place," she paused to snarl.

"Ya almost made me rack up the hog!" Petey roared back in a voice even louder than his normal deafening level, then turned to Tony with a fretful look across his blubbery, weather-worn face. "Y'think she'll be all right?" he asked, with grave concern.

"A doctor would be a little better qualified to make that determination," Tony suggested with the patience of a saint, handing the empty glass to Michelle, who hurried back to the kitchen to throw something nourishing together for Sarina.

"Nah, I mean my hog," Petey clarified at the top of his lungs. "That dude in the monkey suit downstairs wouldn't even let me wheel her into the lobby to look her over... I damned near spilled her in a turn with the old lady hanging off the side like that."

"Your bike'll be fine," Tony assured him with a tinge of annoyance, stooping down and placing his hands gently against either side of Sarina's enormously pregnant gut, barely covered by a dingy white tank top sporting a "69" insignia and a host of mustard, ketchup, and DNA stains. As a series of rapid-fire kicks and punches met Tony's palms from all directions, he wondered why the kid hadn't already been born about a week ago, judging from the enormity of the mother and the healthy, high-activity level of the baby.

"You a doctor?" Sarina groaned in discomfort, struggling like a downed elephant to move herself into more of a seated position, then finally giving up and allowing Tony to do the rest of the heavy lifting.

"Nah, he's 'the man,'" Petey roared laughing, watching Sarina's eye widen in confusion and fear. "I ain't kidding, hon. This here's my buddy, the Fed... The guy that delivered one of them gook babies in Iraqi... Remember I told ya?"

Tony felt a brotherly whack hit his left flank like a ton of bricks, nearly sending him careening on top of the woman's gut.

"Geeziz, Petey, quit horsing around, huh?" he winced, straightening up as Michelle stooped in and draped a dinner napkin over Sarina's midsection as if it were a TV table, then balanced a plate of assorted vegetables, fruits, and cold strips of chicken and beef.

"Can I get you anything, Pete?" Michelle felt obligated to graciously ask, considering that the man, for whatever unimaginable reason, was Tony's best friend.

"Yeah, I'll take a pair of them black bloomers for the old lady, if ya got any extras," Petey roared, figuring he'd hand Michelle a compliment this time, only to find himself apologizing once more after she'd shot straight up, tugged at her shirttails, and glared at him angrily again.

"Enough, Petey," Tony gently admonished him, taking hold of Michelle's hand. "Grab yourself a beer while I scrounge up a doctor for Sarina, okay?" he instructed, leading Michelle into the hallway and down to the guest bedroom. "Olivia's probably got something you can wear in one of the drawers," he said, kissing her cheek apologetically and reaching behind her to open the door. "Don't worry, baby. They're not staying," he was quick to add. "They'll be outta here soon. He's just an old friend from..."

"Tell me later, dear," Michelle suggested, glancing nervously up the hall. "My purse is in there," she smiled weakly, circling her arms around his waist long enough to gently rub the spot where Petey had whacked him.

"It'll be okay. Don't worry. Pete would just as soon cut his hand off than ever lift anything from me. We go back forever," he assured her, aching to be back on the couch tucking her close up against him again, soaking in her gales of laughter and nonstop commentary on the lovely turn-of-the-century wallpaper that you just can't find anymore these days. He couldn't believe his god-awful luck. He hadn't seen or heard from his childhood buddy in over a year, and tonight, of all nights, he had to come ringing the bell — or the doorman's neck, to be more specific — and monopolizing this chunk of his precious time with Michelle, who would've put a steak knife in Pete's back by now if she weren't such a gracious hostess, Tony was sure.

"Listen, umm... call Olivia and tell her and Gerald to be waiting downstairs at the curb as soon as they can make it over here, okay, sweetheart? Her number's inside on the speed dial."

"Are you sure we shouldn't be driving Sarina ourselves?" Michelle asked with as much concern for Olivia as Sarina.

"Nah, the clinic is only ten minutes away. Olivia will be fine," he said, reading her mind and kissing her forehead. "Pete's her godfather. She loves the guy."

Heading back down the hallway, he glanced over his shoulder and cocked a smile in response to Michelle's stunned expression, envisioning himself sitting up in bed for half the night, explaining how eight-year-old Pete had pulled a bunch of kids off him at an inner-city summer camp that his Dad's company had established for poverty-level children. Jim Almeida had forced his son to attend, determined to give him a well-rounded view of the "real world." On Day One, Tony received his first introduction when he found himself pinned to ground, getting his butt ceremoniously kicked by six kids who hadn't taken long to decide that he wasn't exactly from the same kind of 'hood that they were. Tony didn't know why he had to get beaten to a bloody pulp for that, but after Petey — a perfect stranger and twice the size of any of the other kids their age — had rushed in like a raging bull and saved him from a few weeks of hospitalization, they'd instantly become the best of friends.

"It wasn't a fair fight," Petey had later shyly explained to Jim Almeida after Amanda, with limousine tires screeching, had whisked the two boys from the camp infirmary to the Almeidas' personal family physician, ordered them x-rayed from head to toe, then took them back to the house, all without shedding more than a couple of hundred-thousand tears. Jim Almeida promptly fell in love with the stocky, golden-hearted giant when he'd offered Petey a reward of anything he would like — from a toy store shopping spree, to the 5-speed bike of his choice, to a trip to Disneyland — only for the boy to shyly respond with a request for a ham and swiss hero, with mustard and lettuce, and a Budweiser.

Back in the living room, Tony glanced around to find Petey on the other side of the open refrigerator door, seated on a chair he'd pulled over from the breakfast table and hunched forward with a fork in one hand and the glass of wine Michelle had been chilling in the other.

"Got any of Mrs. Sanchez's burritos?" he casually inquired through a full mouth of refrigerator pickings, a trail of roast beef dangling from the side of his mouth and a chunk of potato salad glued to the bottom portion of his squirrelly beard.

"Yeah, but they're frozen," Tony said, not at all sure if that would deter Petey from eating them anyway. "So, listen... Olivia and her boyfriend are on their way over to pick up Sarina and take her to this really good clinic a couple of minutes away. We'll stretch her out in the back seat and you can follow them on the bike, okay?"

Petey stopped chewing long enough to look up and sheepishly reply.

"We ain't got money for no doctor, Tony."

"Pete," Tony said, dropping a comforting hand on the bull's shoulder. "How many times does my Dad have to tell ya never to worry about that kinda thing, huh? He'll pick it up, no matter what. You know that... Just go take care of business and tell them to call my Dad's office... That goes for the future, too... for Sarina and the baby, y'hear?"

Petey looked up with soulful eyes reeking of gratitude and affection for the blood brother he'd always wished was his real brother.

"Thanks, man. I didn't know what I was gonna do when the kid was ready to pop," he admitted.

"Ya do the right thing, that's all," Tony reminded him of Jim Almeida's golden rule. "Sarina oughta be in a delivery room where she belongs when the time comes, Pete. Not in the hands of some midwife in the backroom of a bar. This is your son we're talking about here, after all..."

Petey's eyes widened with exhilaration. "Ya really think it's gonna be a boy?" he asked.

"It better be, or you know my Mom," Tony chuckled. "You'll be the only biker with a daughter who's graduated from finishing school."

"That's one helluva lady, the Duchess is," Petey said with tears welling up in his eyes as he cracked open a beer, tipped his head back, and guzzled the entire bottle down his throat in one singular swig. "She's always been so good to me," he tenderly reminisced.

"Well, you're one of the family, so what do ya expect," Tony smiled warmly, patting his best friend's mammoth shoulder and inadvertently inspiring a long, continuous belch to bellow out of him, sounding more like a wounded Yeti than anything human and perfectly timed with Michelle's reentry into the room. Tony dropped his chin down to his chest, hearing her tsk-ing inside his head. He tried to catch her eye as she scurried back over to Sarina's side with a damp washcloth in hand, but she was obviously too concerned with the state of the woman's grimy complexion to engage in eye-conversation at the moment.

"You're such a fucking pig," Sarina called over her shoulder to Petey, provoking Michelle's eyebrows to shoot up somewhere roughly around her hairline, then casually drop down as though she were perfectly accustomed to overhearing such exchanges of endearments between two bikers in love.

"So, look, I was thinking..." Petey continued unphased, pushing himself up from the chair and wrapping his arm around Tony's shoulder, glancing over at the couch to be sure that his roaring was safely outside the hearing distance of their womenfolk. "I know I ain't the brightest guy in the world, or nothin', but do ya think your Pop might... y'know... maybe have some kinda gig for me, if I axed him? Something, like... full-time, I was thinkin'? I gotta get some kinda decent digs for Tits and the little guy, and with my record, and the heat breathing down my ass in two states, and all..."

Tony grinned, giving his blood brother's voluminous cheek a pat, relieved to realize that Petey had obviously been doing a lot more thinking than he'd originally given him credit for. No one in the family had ever held out hope of Petey becoming a Wall Street magnate or a heart transplant surgeon someday — he was who he was — but years of his parents' family-oriented nurturing and example had apparently paid off to some degree.

"He's gonna be pissed that ya didn't send him a card last year, Pete. I'm warning ya... Ya know how weird he is about Christmas cards," Tony said. "But he'll come up with something. You know that... He's always told ya what a great bodyguard you would make if he could only get ya to wear a black suit, right?"

Pete's face lit up, nodding his head eagerly. Bodyguard work was something he could definitely see himself doing. He'd get to carry a gun; maybe even legally. He quickly ran his dirty fingers through his hair in an attempt to make a more presentable appearance in anticipation of speaking with James Almeida, the greatest man God ever placed on the face of the earth, not counting His only begotten son, God, Jr.

"What time did Olivia say, honey?" Tony called over to Michelle, who was now chattering up a storm with Sarina, asking if she'd like some chilled cucumber slices for her eyelids, offering to brush her hair into a nice, neat braid from the crown of her head on down the back — "The baby could even come tonight, after all, and think of how much more comfortable you'll feel with your hair out of your face" — and warming Tony's heart to the core. He wondered if there were anyone on earth with whom Michelle couldn't find something to amiably and warmly chitchat about.

"Another fifteen minutes or so," she glanced up at him with a sweet smile, returning her attention to Sarina's fingernails, wondering if she could pull off a quickie French manicure in the short time remaining. "Oh, and I told Olivia she could stay out 'til midnight, so remember to call Mrs. Maddigan and tell her that, dear."

Tony's mouth automatically opened to object, but quickly sealed itself shut again. Michelle had made more headway with Olivia over one linner than he, Lou, Mrs. Madison, and his parents, combined, had achieved in months. He would defer to her judgment, deciding there on the spot to officially promote her to Director of Them and Olivia and Possibly Sarina, judging from the way things seemed to be going over at Michelle's triage nail salon.

He fetched his cell phone and entered his Dad's number, thinking about how thrilled he would be to hear Petey finally asking if he could hang up his leather vest and don a God-only-knew-what-size black suit, full-time. As the phone rang on the other end, he handed it over to Petey, hoping that his Mom wasn't taking his Dad's calls.

"If my Mom answers, don't tell her about the baby, Petey, whatever ya do," Tony warned him. "She'll have ya on the phone for an hour. This'll be her first grandkid, after all."

Petey felt a lump ball up in his throat at the thought of the Almeidas regarding the fruit of his loins as their own grandson.

In the time it had taken Tony to walk over to Michelle, give her neck a reassuring squeeze, and walk back over to Petey, Amanda Almeida had answered the phone, squealed with delight and relief upon hearing Petey's voice, scolded him for not having called for so many months, and wangled the news of the baby out of him with the ease of an anesthesiologist administering sodium pentathol to a natural-born blabbermouth. Tony just shook his head.

"Nah, ya ain't gotta rush home, Duchess. The kid ain't comin' for another coupla weeks, if I know my math," Petey assured her as Tony rolled his eyes this time, trying to recall even one math exam Petey had ever passed in his short scholastic life before finally throwing in the towel and dropping out of school altogether. If anything, the enormous Sarina was overdue; Tony even had the sneaking suspicion that if she didn't get over to the clinic soon, he might well be delivering his second baby, only this time without the aid of two other medic-trained Marines hovering over his shoulder throughout.

"Nah, nah, she's feeling okay now. Tony's girlfriend's looking after her," Petey innocently mentioned. "Boy, is she big!"

Tony felt faint. He sealed his eyes shut in disbelief. The cat was out of the bag. He had completely forgotten to tell Petey not to breathe a word about Michelle to his Mom.

"Hah?... Nah, Tony's girlfriend ain't big. She's a little thing. I was talking about Sarina," Petey clarified.

Tony slowly reopened his eyes to the sight of the phone being held up to his face.

"Your Ma wants to talk to ya," Petey said with a huge question mark etched into his expression, not sure why Tony was glaring at him like that.

"Uhh... Yeah, thanks, Pete," he replied, clearing his throat before placing the phone against his ear, preparing himself for a full-blown, five-alarm verbal thrashing. "Mom?"

There was no need to say another word for the next few minutes. Amanda Almeida would be doing all the talking — or dressing-down, to put it more succinctly. "But, Mom," he tried a few times with no success, impatiently resting his hand on his hip and shifting his weight from one foot to the other while she chewed him out for deviously trying to conceal his new girlfriend from her.

"I didn't lie, Mom," he defended himself once the first opportunity to get a word in edgewise had finally presented itself. "W_e are_ watching TV and I _was _too tired to go out... Well, that's not what ya asked me... I'm not telling you, Mom... You know why... When the time comes... When I decide when... I'm not being—Ma, I'm not being fresh. I'm just laying out the facts. You'll meet her when the time is right, okay?... You'll be the first to know... I'm a little old for that, Ma. Ya really need to update your threats... Look, look, can I just call ya tomorrow? I've got a pregnant woman here who looks like she's—No, Mom, _Sarina! _Geeziz! I'll call—Mom, I'll call ya in the morning, okay?... Huh?... How would I know? You women never even let us go to those things... Uhh, no, I'm sure she doesn't know any more about biker baby showers than I do, but nice try... When I decide, okay? We've already been through this... I'm—Mom? I'm hanging up now... Yeah, I'll tell him... Love you, too... When I decide! Okay? Geeziz," he said, clicking off the phone and shaking his head in a mixture of utter amazement and dread.

He was glad Michelle was in the room just so he could stare at her forlornly, even though she was busy chatting with Sarina, blowing on her freshly polished nails, offering to dab club soda on her various t-shirt stains, and not even paying attention to him. Little did she know the hell they'd both be facing the minute the wheels of Almeida Amalgamate's corporate jet touched down.

"Honey? Finish up with Sarina, please? Olivia will be downstairs in a minute," Tony said glumly, checking his watch and rubbing his eyes.

"Damn, I always wanted to be a ghost," Petey confessed from across the room with the remote control in his hand. "Imagine all the shit ya could do without gettin' busted, huh, Tony?" he fantasized. "Did ya ever see 'Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man'?"

"Nah, I must've missed that one," Tony murmured, still shaking his head in disbelief. "Listen, Mom says you two are to move into the house tonight, Pete. No arguments."

"The tree house?" Petey bellowed excitedly.

"Help Sarina off the couch," Tony sighed, dropping his chin to his chest and rubbing his eyes again. He loved Petey like a brother, but more often than not he would find himself relating to Tom Cruise's character in "Rainman," having to deal with a brother who wasn't all quite there.

As the process of shuffling out the door began, Petey turned and walked back to Michelle, planting a kiss on her hand like he'd seen gentleman do with sophisticated ladies in old black-and-white movies, and apologized to her again, feeling ashamed of himself.

"I get rude sometimes and I don't even know it," he bellowed out a beer-breathed explanation, bringing a tear to Michelle's eye. She accepted a bear hug from him, which came close to cracking a rib, and another one from Tony, who whispered in her ear that he loved her, reminding her that she now owed him four and pointing out, just for the record, that he'd said all three words again, not two.

Once downstairs, Tony allowed Olivia the usual couple of minutes to climb and squeal and hang all over Petey while he settled Sarina in the backseat of the car and barked out the clinic's directions to Gerald in military terminology. He and Petey then hugged, kissed, and punched each other goodbye, agreeing to talk sometime tomorrow. He even kissed Olivia's cheek for the first time in ages, shocking and stunning them both.

"Midnight," he said, aiming a finger of warning in Olivia's face before heading back through the lobby door, heaving a huge sigh of relief and aching to get back upstairs to Michelle.

He found her sprawled half-on and half-off the couch, struggling to remove Olivia's size-zero leggings, which she had earlier located in the guest bedroom and somehow managed to get into, but which were now dangerously compromising her circulation.

"I think you're gonna need a scissor, dear," Michelle said, fully intending to replace them with a new pair.

As he snipped his way up one leg and down the other, Tony gently broke the news that Petey had innocently spilled the beans about them to his Mom.

"Well, I don't know what you're so worried about," Michelle heaved a sigh of relief once he had finally snipped her free. "Seems to me that Pete's done you a huge favor."

"Uhh... you don't know my Mom," Tony smiled as lightheartedly as he could. "She's hell-bent on getting herself a grandchild and dedicated to torturing me 'til the day I hand one over."

"I don't know how true that's gonna be anymore once Sarina gives birth," Michelle nonchalantly replied, following him into the kitchen while he poured them a fresh glass of wine. "I mean, look at the bigger picture, dear. Why would your Mom need to bug you for a grandchild once her arms are already full up with Pete's?"

Tony arched an eyebrow. He hadn't even considered that. It was wholly conceivable that the baby's arrival could indeed get his Mom off his back, or at least for the time being. If so, Petey's unexpected visit would be well worth the time he'd lost with Michelle. The more he thought about it, the more he could barely contain his elation: Amanda Almeida would have the baby — her surrogate grandchild — right there on the grounds with her, to consume herself with and show off to her girlfriends. Plus, once they got a load of Sarina, his Mom would have all the material she needed to elevate herself to sainthood status for having heroically swooped in and snatched the little booger away from the equivalent of the satanic cult he'd been born into; for providing him with a roof over his head, on the right side of town; clothing; Pampers; a wholesome family environment he never would've otherwise had...This could indeed be just the break Tony had been praying for ever since his Mom first caught the grandbaby bug, going on seven years now.

"But... Pete isn't an actual 'blood' Almeida, so — so is that still gonna count? I mean, like, with my Mom's girlfriends?" he asked nervously, settling on the couch again with his head resting against his hand and Michelle on her back beside him.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, dear. If Pete's been in your family since you two were boys, which of her girlfriends is gonna have the nerve to quibble over a technicality like that?" she logically assessed. "Besides, with the grandmother crowd, it's not about 'grandchildren' so much as 'babies'. That's what the big fuss is all about. And think about all the fuss your Mom's gonna receive when she shows up with both of them in her arms."

"Huh?" Tony frowned, slowly pushing himself up on his elbow. "Both of them?... Y'mean, like, more than one—like, 'twins'?"

"I don't know how many kicking feet you counted, dear, but there were more than two, by my tally," Michelle giggled. "Plus, my Aunt Hildie's sister-in-law's cousin Sarabeth? Who's divorced now because her husband took up with a woman on their bowling team? That's exactly the way she looked when she was carrying twins. Super-big and all up front, just like Sarina," she assured him, illustrating the shape with her hands drawing a large circle above her stomach area.

Tony could hardly believe what he was hearing. It took a few minutes to even sink in. Saint Amanda. His Mom could play up one baby to the hilt, no sweat. But two? Her girlfriends wouldn't stand a fighting chance. Their blood-grandkids would come out looking like household pets after Amanda Almeida, with a baby in each arm, got through with them.

"I'm no obstetrician, so don't hold me to it, but I'd say you're off the hook for awhile," Michelle summarized with a beaming smile.

He stared down at Michelle, gently placing his hand on her head and wishing he could somehow, through the process of osmosis, sink it through her scalp and skull and pet her brain. Beautiful, sexy, even-tempered, willing to put up with his rants, and brilliant, too. There must be a God, he thought, with proper apologies and all due respect to the testosterone overlords. Somewhere, at some point in his life, he must have done something right to have been rewarded with so perfect a woman as Michelle.

"Do you have any idea how smart you are?" he asked with his eyes glazing over.

"Ah-huh," she answered matter-of-factly, turning onto her side toward the TV and clicking her movie back on with his remote control. "That's why you need to listen to me more often, dear," she stated just before launching into a whole new nonstop, chattering commentary about how Lucia was wrong to abandon the Captain, no matter how stubborn and prone to tantrums and demanding he was. They belonged together and should stick together even through the toughest of times — like, this particular life of theirs, for example, when one of them was already a ghost and the other was still a mortal... with fabulous skin tone... and a waistline one could kill for... and an excellent eye for turn-of-the-century wallpaper that one should only be so blessed to find these days... and the cutest daughter, played by Natalie Wood, whom in real life had died so young and tragically under circumstances that were still a little murky and suspicious, and...


	12. His Movie

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 12: His Movie_

"We've already gone over this twice, dear," Michelle patiently reminded him, exhibiting remarkable patience and tolerance under the circumstances.

"So we'll go over it a third time. Who's it gonna kill... hmmm?"

Michelle sighed heavily.

"Rule One?" Tony inquired.

She pinched her lips and shook her head in utter disbelief.

"Rule One?" he repeated.

"'No talking,' okay? For pete'ssake, dear," she huffed from her perch on the edge of the couch, sitting rigidly upright with her arms and legs tightly crossed, watching him rummage through a few drawers of the armoire housing the television monitor.

"Rule Two?" he continued.

She slowly closed her eyes, growing more and more aggravated with every word that unwisely departed his mouth. "I'm not participating in this any longer," she factually informed him, opening her eyes again and staring bullets into his back.

"Rule Two?" he repeated, ignoring her unacceptable response.

If only he knew how close she was to calling the wedding off the minute he got around to proposing, Michelle thought.

"'No talking,' all right? I've got it, dear. Okay?"

"Rule Three?"

She was steaming.

"I'm sorry, baby. I didn't hear you," he sing-sang obsequiously. "Rule Three?"

"'No talking'... Here's Rule Four, in the event you're interested. You're never touching me again for the rest of your life if you bring those obnoxious rules up to me one more time," she vowed.

He snickered. He had made his point. Besides, she was full of it. No way she could make it through the rest of her life without The Sperminator. Who did she think she was kidding anyway. The woman was clearly hooked.

"What's this for?" Michelle grumbled as he approached and wrestled her hand open, dropping two small batteries into her palm.

"Eh, the remote's been feeling a little sluggish. Probably just the batteries. Do me a favor and change 'em for me, sweetheart?" he nonchalantly requested over his shoulder en route to the kitchen.

"There's not a thing wrong with these batteries, dear," Michelle announced after pretending to examine the remote, though actually exercising and warming up her eye muscles, moving them from side to side multiple times in anticipation of ultimately sustaining a long, hard peer to her right the minute he made his covert — or so he thought — move to retrieve his M&M's from his secret — though not for long — hiding place.

"Just... just change them, okay?" he griped, irritated with himself upon realizing that he'd failed to concoct a backup plan to preoccupy her while he retrieved his stash. Why did she have to be so electronically adept, intellectually curious, and factually correct all the time, anyway? Pink Sweater hadn't said a word when he'd asked her to change the batteries a few years back. It had taken her a full ten minutes, in fact, before she had figured out where the battery panel was located, how to slide it open, in which direction to insert the positive and negative terminals, and how to slide the little panel closed again. He'd never retrieved his M&M's so leisurely or carefreely in his entire life.

About an hour or so away and 20,000 feet above, the plane couldn't move fast enough for Amanda Almeida. She'd get out and push if she weren't certain it would ruin her hair. Impatiently glancing at her ruby-and-diamond-encrusted Chopard watch for the fourth time in the past five minutes, she took another sip from her hand-blown Scandinavian crystal martini glass, smoothed a wrinkle from the skirt of her custom-designed Givenchy suit, picked up her platinum Caran d'Ache fountain pen, and scanned her list again:

• Get names of Sarina's girlfriends from Peter

• Engrave invitations ASAP — "With breathless anticipation of the arrival of Amanada Almeida's grandchild, you are cordially invited to attend a baby shower to be held yada, yada, yada... (Work in Sarina's name somewhere)

• Shower favors/call Henri ASAP — sterling charm bracelets w/bike theme: child's tricycle; bike w/training wheels; older child's 5-speed; grownup child's Harley... whatever else Henri can think of (bells? streamers? baskets? gas tanks?)

• Call Miriam re: P.I.

• Question Louis & Olivia re: Michelle (?)

• Olivia — grounded/two weeks

• Tony — DIB!

Amanda paused to fume again. That son of hers was getting just a little too fresh for her blood lately. She had every right as his mother and the grandmother of his future children to meet and interrogate that woman he was seeing behind her back. Something with an "M"... "Michelle," was it? "Melody"? "Melissa"? Darn. She was pretty sure "Michelle" was the name that Olivia had earlier mentioned, despite the girl's sudden and conveniently timed bout of amnesia ten minutes ago, when Amanda had called to question her further. Those two children of hers were always in cahoots with each other, she bristled, conspiring against their own mother even when they weren't on speaking terms. Heck, they never even needed to "speak"! The positively eerie way in which they communicated with their eyes sometimes made her feel as though she'd given birth to Children of the Corn.

Her growing anger and frustration was temporarily placed on hold when a timid steward gingerly approached and handed her a phone.

"Miriam, darling, how cosmic of you. I'd just written your name on my must-call list. How are you, darling"" Amanda chirped. "Lovely. And how was Tropez?... Well, it's tourist season, darling. What did you expect... Oh, I had just wanted to ask you the name of that private investigator you were so pleased with,... No, the one who'd worked so quickly to compile the dossier on that tart who'd try to steal your Stanley away... No, the other tart, darling. The one who'd mixed the Gucci purse with those dreadful open-toed Jimmy Choo knockoffs. Remember how hard we laughed when we saw the pictures?... Ah, Mr. Kobayashi, of course. I knew it was something Nipponese," she said with the perfect, politically correct Japanese accent. "Oh, would you, darling? That would be marvelous... Hmmm?... My Jim? Oh, heaven's, no. You must be joking. It's for my son. He's finally seeing someone again... You're too sweet, Miriam. Yes, you can tell Mr. Kobayashi that I believe it's with an 'M'. Likely 'Michelle,' though I can't be certain... No, I couldn't even get the first name out of him, much less a surname, and Olivia's sealed herself up like a clam. I'm simply up to here with the both of them," she sighed, indicating the middle of her forehead with the rim of her martini glass. "Oh, please, darling, your son is a perfect angel compared to mine. He's become so fresh lately, I hardly even know what to do anymore... Yes, fresh to his own mother, Miriam, and his language is perfectly disgraceful, as well. Every other word out of his mouth is 'h-e-double-hockey-sticks,' if you catch my meaning... No, he's been picking it up for years at that dreadful 'CTU' place he works for... CTU, darling. You remember. The place that blew up last week. We canceled lunch..."

Amanda shuddered to think of the language her son might well employ if he were ever to find out about Mr. Kobayashi. But his stubborn refusal to answer even the most basic, fundamental questions, like name, age, social security, and blood type — or even so much as confirm the very existence of the woman — had left Amanda with no other recourse but to pursue alternative means of sourcing out the information. She could hardly be expected, after all, to simply sit back and watch his life shatter again, as that last horrid CTU woman had done to him. Besides, her son should know by now that if he wanted to keep such vital information from her, he'd best be prepared to play hardball Amanda Almeida-style.

She bid her good-byes to Miriam and picked up her pen again, jotting some notes to remind herself of a few of the points she intended to make the next time she got her hands on that perfectly fresh young man of hers: first and foremost, the way he always hung up on her without saying "good-bye." She didn't give a hoot if every last employee of the federal government wished to behave like they'd been raised by cave dwellers; far be it for Amanda Almeida to utter a politically incorrect word about it. But when Anthony Almeida was conversing with the woman who'd given him his very life, he would just have to remember to say "good-bye" before clapping his phone shut like that.

Back down on Earth, Tony stared at Michelle in mild shock.

"What do ya mean, 'no'?"

"I'm just not in the mood, dear," Michelle shrugged, watching her elbows this time as she shifted into a comfortable position between his legs, settling half on her side and half on her stomach, with her arms tucked around him and her cheek resting against his chest.

"How can ya not be in the mood? This is the kind with the almonds," he exclaimed in wide-eyed bewilderment.

"I'm probably not even gonna like them," she said, scrunching her nose. "I've never tried the almond ones before."

In actuality, she could kill for some M&M's. Especially the kind with the almonds, which happened to be her absolute favorite. Nevertheless, she was determined to resist, thereby leaving it to him to explain to his ridiculous pagan deities why he hadn't paid proper homage to them via the holy Snatch Back ceremony. He deserved their wrath, after all, for having obnoxiously put her through those silly made-up rules of his, three entire times, no less.

"Well... well, how do ya know you're not gonna like them if ya don't even try them?" he asked in dismay, thinking to himself how much he just sounded like his Mom that time she had tried to push raw sushi on him when he was a kid. He recalled how annoyed she had gotten when his salt-of-the-earth grandfather had risen from his chair and come to his rescue, insisting that there wasn't a reason in the world why a boy Tony's age should have to "expand his palette" by taste-testing the equivalent of bait.

"I wouldn't step on that stuff on the sidewalk!" his grandfather had roared out in the middle of the exclusive Japanese restaurant where Amanda had chosen to celebrate his Dad's birthday that year. Seizing upon the perfect opportunity, his grandfather Almeida had snatched him up from his chair and roared, "We're getting' the hell outta this fish-stinkin' joint, kid!" making a break for the door and not slowing down a step until they had finally come across a Burger King. It was the best dinner Tony had ever had.

"Mmm... no thanks," Michelle declined, not moving a muscle as he held the bag out to her again, offering to pour some into her hand. "You go ahead and enjoy them, dear. I'm fine. Really."

"No, here," Tony insisted in a light panic, knowing the anger he was bound to provoke in the testosterone gods if he didn't even try to pull off at least one ceremonial Snatch Back.

The phone rang from across the room. Tony couldn't believe it.

"Geeziz! What the hell does this world want from me!" he exploded as he bustled Michelle off his chest and rushed to retrieve the phone, clipping his knee against the edge of one of the kitchen table's chairs along the way. "If this is Chappelle, half the damned country had better be in the throes of Armageddon or I'm reading the riot act to that guy," he warned the world.

"It could be Pete calling about the baby, y'know," Michelle soothingly offered from the corner of the couch she had landed in after Tony had leapt to his feet at atomic speed.

"Almeida," he barked into the phone, angrily rubbing his knee in pain and peering down at it as if already convinced he'd be spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Michelle stared in suspense, watching his expression slowly transform from self-pitying agony to wide-eyed amazement.

"It's starting already! I knew it!" he whispered loudly across the room, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece.

"Oh, my God! She's gone into labor?" Michelle whispered back excitedly. It occurred to her that very moment that she hadn't even offered Sarina to be her coach, as any hostess worth her salt would quite naturally be expected to do. Her mind frantically raced to remember the special Pregnancy Apparel edition of Elle she'd read last spring, with step-by-step Lamaze instructions replete with a breathing chart and detailed illustrations of each vital stage of the delivery process.

"Whoa, whoa... just... Look, just take a deep breath and calm down first, all right?" Tony said into the mouthpiece in a smooth, easy, authoritative voice. "One thing at a time. I can barely understand a word you're saying... No, take a breath first. You're not even making any sense... Fine. Now, just hang on and listen for a second, okay?... No, don't talk. Just listen, all right?... First of all, I wasn't being fresh. I was simply trying to explain that... Ma?... that you'll meet her when I decide the time is right. Now, did ya see how nicely and calmly I just said that? It's the same exact way I said it bef... Mom?... Ma..."

He dropped his head and squeezed his forehead in pain, arching his aching eyes up in Michelle's direction to be certain she was taking note of the hell that was already starting, just as he had warned her it would.

"Look, Mom... Mom... We've gotta talk about this in the morning, okay? Petey could be trying to call and... Geeziz, how the hell would I know? Sarina didn't even know when the baby was due... All I know is that she's enormous, just like you were when ya... I didn't mean it that way, Mom. I just meant that Sarina could be in the middle of having the kid right now, so we shouldn't be tying up the lines like this... Huh?... 'H-e-double' what?... What the hell are ya— Okay, fine, fine. I won't anymore, okay? I promise... Yeah, but tomorrow, Mom, not... Hah?" he said, squinting his eyes as though struggling to understand what she was saying. He listened in confusion for another few moments, then dropped his chin to his chest, closing his eyes and slowly reopening them again. "No, fine, fine... 'Good-bye,' Mom... Like that? Was that good?... Geeziz," he said, clapping the phone shut.

"I'm getting a headache, Michelle," he whined in anguish, limping back in the direction of the couch. "First I smashed my knee, and now I'm getting a headache."

"Not another one," Michelle went out of her way to fret on cue, scrunching her forehead and gazing at him with deep sympathy and concern, which already made him feel a little better.

"It's spreading through my entire head," he nevertheless moaned, lowering himself onto the couch and wincing in agony as he bent his knee. "Why can't I just watch the Nazis get slaughtered in peace? Is that too much to ask?" he rhetorically inquired, gesturing toward the frozen screen of the boys hunched behind a boulder, moments away from pouncing on the enemy's unsuspecting sentry. This is what he got for failing to properly honor the overlords.

He whimpered as Michelle cajoled him into a reclining position, helping him lower his head onto the pillow and stretch himself down the length of the couch. She spent a minute gently stroking her fingertips through his hair and listening to his pained breathing, like a man on his deathbed clinging to life.

"I wish I had more cake to give you," Michelle sympathized, identifying his headache as definitely not the aspirin kind, but the grandmother-wannabe kind. Even worse, the mother-with-a-late-thirties-son-who-wasn't-even-married-yet kind. "Maybe an M&M? That's sort of like cake in a way, isn't it?... Y'think that might help to ease the pain?"

"I'm not sure, but I'll try," he moaned bravely, parting his lips to accept the blue one Michelle had already dug out of the bag and was perched to place on his tongue. Generally, no one was allowed to touch his M&M's, but he would make an exception in this case, considering it was an emergency.

"Just suck on it, dear. If you bite into it, it'll probably send shooting pains from your jaw into your brain," she advised with the wisdom of Florence Nightingale, transferring her attentive hands from his head to his leg wound. "Let's get you inside so I can have a look at what you did to this knee," she announced.

"The chair did it, Michelle!" he quickly set the facts straight.

"Well, however it happened, your leg is just gonna cramp up on this couch and inflame the injury even more," she stated authoritatively, recognizing his high-frustration level over his Mom and, hence, the need to have pity heaped upon him. "Do you think you can make it to the bedroom if I help you?... Hmmm?" she asked, shifting her fuss-gear into overdrive.

"I'll try," he moaned courageously, temporarily storing the M&M in the side of his cheek as he summoned the strength to push himself up on his elbows, like a fallen soldier determined to live and fight another day. "The M&M's," he managed to whimper through the searing pain, pointing to the bag on the hassock. "I might need more."

"I know, dear. I'll come back for them, " she promised, squeezing her eyes shut upon hearing the phone ring yet again.

"Geeziz!" Tony thundered, promptly dropping himself down on the couch. "I'm not answering that, Michelle!"

"You have to, honey," she placidly said, reminding him of the unfortunate nighttime-and-weekend rules governing Unit Directors as she scurried to fetch the phone for him.

"It's not the office," he psychically stated, dropping his head into his hands and seriously wondering what to do. Perhaps a call to his Dad, as much as he hated even considering dragging him in at this point. He generally liked to reserve his Dad — "the big guns" — as his last resort. He was the only man on Earth with any kind of control over Amanda Almeida.

"Well, just... just try to keep your temper at bay. She is your mother, after all," Michelle gently encouraged him as he reluctantly took the phone from her hand. He inhaled deeply, preparing to comply with her wishes, though unable to offer any guarantees.

"Almeida," he said in a perfectly composed tone, immediately glaring up at Michelle with an I-told-ya-so expression fixed on his face. "I thought we agreed to stay off the phone in case Pete... 'Cause they're probably still at the clinic. Saturday's their busiest night down there. Just tell the driver to take ya home and if I hear anything, I'll call ya, okay?... No, Mom. I'm not telling you that... 'Cause you'll only go down there and drive everybody insane... No, I gave her 'til midnight... We're not in 'cahoots,' Ma. I just wanna see how she handles the responsibility... Okay... Okay, I will," he said, clapping the phone shut, only to have it ring again a couple of seconds later. "Yes, good-bye, Mom. Good-bye... I thought I said it..."

He clapped the phone shut again in frustration and handed it back to Michelle. "She's gonna be calling all night," he anguished, wondering if the California stalking laws applied to sons and mothers.

"Just try to relax, dear. You're only gonna make your headache worse," Michelle doted some more, knowing there was little else to do but smother him in the sympathy and attention he craved. "I really don't know why you even allow yourself to get so upset in the first place."

"Because I knew this was gonna happen, Michelle! I told ya she was gonna make my life a living hell the second she found out about you."

"She wasn't calling about me, honey," she gently reminded him. "She was calling about Sarina."

"That was just her cover story," he cynically assured her. "She was hoping that you would answer, thinking it would be safe to do after she'd promised to stay off the phone for the rest of the night," he snarled in aggravation, mindlessly chomping down on the M&M, then remembering to wince in searing pain. "And then once she had you on the phone, she was gonna trap you into saying 'yes' to us doing lunch or dinner tomorrow, before ya even knew what hit ya. You don't know this woman on the subject of marriage and grandchildren..."

"So why don't you just humor her?" Michelle suggested. "Once she meets me, she'll leave you alone. And isn't that what you want?"

"It's the principle," he growled. "I'm not ten years old anymore and she's gotta learn to accept that reality. It's my life and my decisions, not hers anymore."

"Remind me to explain how much easier and more effective 'yessing' someone to death is rather than trying to change their personality," Michelle said, smiling as she thought back to how young she had been when she'd figured that out about her dearly departed mother's two sisters, Aunt Gert and Aunt Hildie, who'd raised her and Danny since she was just a infant. There were no two women on earth more overprotective and overbearing, or more manipulatable through the simple use of the word "okay."

Michelle listened to him mutter a series of unintelligible comments under his breath as she cajoled him back onto his feet and rewrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"I knew this guy in the service who smashed his knee and ended up having to get his leg amputated, y'know," he informed her, conveniently neglecting to mention the tank that had run over it.

"Yes, I've heard of freak medical incidents occurring like that," Michelle fretted in solidarity. "It can be very dangerous if you bang your knee the wrong way, I know, dear. Your elbow, too," she added, surreptitiously suggesting another injury he could fake the next time he felt the need to be smothered in sympathy and attention.

"It wasn't just a 'bang,' Michelle. It was a smash," he corrected her as she guided him into the bedroom, placing the phone on the nightstand and sitting him down on the side of the bed. She went about the business of removing his shoes and socks and tugging his jeans off, then returned to the living room for his M&M's and a couple of couch pillows, which she tucked beneath the bend in his leg to elevate his knee.

He laid back in blissful serenity, clutching the M&M's to his chest and gazing down at Michelle sitting beside his knee, examining it with her fingertips and kissing it a few times. Satisfied that an amputation probably wouldn't be necessary, she rose up and moved to the head of the bed, gently wrestling the bag from his hands and depositing one into his mouth before placing them on the nightstand.

"You're so good to me," he said, dreamily coaxing her down by her wrist and temporarily tucking the M&M into his cheek while he embraced her lips in long, warm, soulful kiss.

He knew she was fully aware there wasn't a thing wrong with his knee or his head; that he'd simply had it up to his eyeballs with the constant slew of interruptions all evening long, and on a night when the only people he wanted in his world were Michelle, Greg Peck, Tony, and Tony. He loved his Mom to death and generally found her craziness more amusing than upsetting, but this just wasn't the night for it. There would plenty of time to reintroduce her, and everyone else who wished to annoy the hell out of him, back into his life come Monday.

"I think those M&M's are beginning to work," Michelle smiled against his mouth after two strong arms had effortlessly dragged her on top of his body and enveloped her in an extra firm hug.

"A little," he agreed, nuzzling his lips against her ear and casually suggesting in a low, soft voice that perhaps a neck and shoulder massage might help to loosen his muscles up, relieve some of the stress, and possibly even cure his headache. Or at least enough to get him through The Guns relatively pain-free. She lifted her head and kissed around his face and jaw, agreeing that a massage indeed sounded like a logical first step, but that a relaxing bath with dimmed lights, and maybe even a little soothing music, might be necessary, as well, to achieve the full therapeutic affect.

He sighed contentedly, tightening his embrace as she began to slide herself away to get the massage ball rolling.

"Not yet," he whispered and kissed her ear, needing to feel her warm body pressing against him for just a little while longer. He took a quiet moment to curse out the estrogen goddesses again for dropping by at the worst of all possible times, when he wanted nothing more in the world than to roll over and ensconce himself in her for the next solid hour, or however long it took to make long, slow, sweaty love to her. The kind that made windows rattle at its soul-satiating conclusion.

"That's a pretty big bathtub, y'know," he slyly dropped the hint as she kissed him a few final times before lifting herself off him and coaxing him into a sitting position.

"Mmm, I thought I'd noticed that earlier this morning," she coquettishly recalled, dragging his long-sleeved CUBS t-shirt over his head, then pushing the bed pillows off to the side and steering him onto his stomach, flat against the cool sheets. She took a little longer than necessary to wiggle herself into position on top of his hips, then sank her fingertips firmly into his muscles and giggled to herself as his earlier fraudulent moans of pain quickly dissolved into sounds resembling something more along the lines of rapture.

"Geeziz, your hands are like magic," he murmured after a few minutes of dizzying euphoria, knowing he could easily slip into sleep from how thoroughly relaxed he felt, but refusing to miss a moment of the sensations that seemed to be coming at him from all directions: the snuggness of her thighs pressing against his sides; the way she rocked against his hips as she slowly and methodically kneaded away the knots in his shoulders; the chills that shot through his body when her nails dragged down the center of his back. He felt like he had died and gone to heaven until the phone rang again, instantly sending him spiraling back into the belly of hell.

"Don't deprive yourself of oxygen like that," Michelle recommended after noticing that his breathing had stopped. "It's not good for your brain," she assured him, more fully appreciating the problem he indeed had on his hands and beginning to genuinely fear the moment she would eventually meet the infamous Amanda Almeida.

He reached for the phone on the nightstand, then slowly raised and propped himself up on both elbows. Flipping the phone open and preparing to scream into it, he felt Michelle shimmy down and reseat herself on the back of his thighs. His aggravation instantly evaporated as his boxers suddenly began easing slowly downward a couple of inches, both surprising and exciting him as they came to rest in the middle of his hips.

"Almeida," he moaned in ecstasy, feeling Michelle's fingertip beginning to gently scroll out a message across the exposed skin she'd decided to turn into a writing tablet. "Nah, I was just lying down..." he sighed into the receiver, identifying the words "Be nice!" she had scripted into his tingling skin, with a little extra pressure applied to the dot of the exclamation point. "Nothing, Mom. I just hurt my knee... No, I don't need an x-ray," he quietly mumbled into the receiver, dropping his head a little and shivering from the sensation of soft, ticklish heart shapes lazily etching themselves into his electrified flesh. "I'm going to sleep now, Mom, so could ya please, please not call me anymore tonight?" he asked as gently and politely as he possibly could, winning a soft pat of approval. "Nah, she gave me a pain pill she had and took a cab home," he flagrantly lied, hoping it might dissuade his Mom from calling any more that evening if she knew there was no chance of Michelle answering the phone.

He tried not to laugh when Michelle's tender swirls of approval abruptly transformed into in swat, followed by "You are such a liar!" scribbling frantically and ending with an even firmer poke beneath the exclamation point. Clenching her fingers together, she vigorously rubbed the heart shapes away, like an eraser against a chalkboard, and immediately replaced them with what felt to him like the image of a large skull and crossbones.

"Yes, Mom, I know, but it was only... it was only one pill, Ma," he assured her, expounding upon his lie as he explained that the pill Michelle had given him was the same kind the CTU doctor had prescribed when he'd hurt his ankle last week. "I'm not gonna slip into a coma," he promised, allowing another low, ecstatic moan to escape from his throat as Michelle's fingertip ticklishly scribbled out "It sounds like I abandoned you!" and "I sound like a drug pusher!" He was reasonably certain that his moans of ecstasy would pass for pain, but nevertheless struggled to curtail them as Michelle went on to scroll "She's going to hate me!" across his haunches. He "yessed" his Mom a few times, just as Michelle had earlier suggested, before politely saying "good night," earning himself another pat of approval.

"See? It's not so difficult to speak nicely to your mother," Michelle proudly noted as she nudged him off his elbows and flat against the sheets again.

"Don't let her fool ya, baby," he dreamily sighed, closing his eyes and resting his cheek against the cell phone in his hand. "She was just trying to wangle me into going down to the clinic so she'd have an excuse to meet me there, knowing that you'd eventually show up, if you weren't already there by the time she arrived."

"Well, just try to put it all out of your mind," Michelle encouraged him, leaning in with the intention of returning the phone to the nightstand.

"Nah, she's not through yet, baby," he guaranteed her, holding onto the phone for now. "Give it another 10 seconds, or so, and she'll..."

The phone rang in his hand sooner than even he had anticipated. He didn't bother to prop himself up on his elbows this time, far too comfortable to move a muscle.

"I thought you promised not to call anymore tonight," he politely mumbled, quietly listening for a few moments. "I'm not getting my stomach pumped. Nice try, though, Mom. Good night, now... Good night, Ma... 'Cause I'm hanging up on you..." he blissfully moaned, concentrating on the new message gently scrolling across his stimulated skin as he clapped the phone shut and tossed it aside.

"I-L-O..." he read aloud, intoxicated by the tingling sensation her fingertip produced. "Ilo"?

"Shhh," Michelle hushed him, busily engrossed in her writing.

"V-E-U..." he continued. "Ilo... vey... ou? Is that French?" he mumbled. "Could ya do it again, in Spanish this time, honey?"

"Shhhh... Pay attention," she giggled, starting from the beginning again.

"I-L-O-V-E-U," he spelled out. "I... love... you."

"Yes, I know you do, dear," Michelle facetiously agreed, moving up and stretching herself out along his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a series of small kisses against the side of his face. "I'd even go so far as to say you adore me."

"You tricked me," he chuckled, nudging her with an upward bump of his hips. "That's five you owe me, by the way..."

It felt like an eternity had passed by the time the long, black limousine had finally approached the semicircular driveway and snaked its way up and to a halt.

"What do I do now, darling? Give you money, or something?" Amanda Almeida pleasantly asked the uniformed driver as he took her silk-gloved hand and helped her out of the back seat. She'd grown so accustomed to Louis always shuttling her to and fro that she'd long ago forgotten the payment process for public transportation. "Are you sure you wouldn't just like to call my husband's office in the morning, darling? It's always so much easier that way... Hmmm?"

But the man began frantically insisting, in either perfect Spanish or Italian or perfectly mangled English, that she produce a credit card or cash, so Amanda appeased him with a handful of rumpled fifty-dollar bills that were only cluttering the interior of her Givenchy purse anyway.

"Will this be enough, darling?" she politely inquired, straining to understand the man's response as he kissed her glove repeatedly, his eyes filling up with grateful tears.

"'Cuatro' bambinos, did you say?" Amanda asked, trying desperately to remember her Italian from her Spanish, both of which she was horrible at. "Why, that's lovely, darling... Yes, by all means, purchase school supplies and shoes. Children always adore that. I have two of my own, you know, Senor, uhh?... Ahh, Senor Estrada! Yes. Inarguably among the oldest surnames in all of Spain! Steeped in heritage and rich in culture," she complimented him, having absolutely no idea what she was talking about and totally making it up as she went along. "Any grandchildren, darling?... Ah, still in elementary school. I see... Well, you have a bit of a wait on your hands, in that case, haven't you?... No, no, no need to bother escorting me. You just get yourself home to that charming family of yours, il mio amico...Yes, and a lovely buonas noches to you as well..."

What a perfectly pleasant gentleman, Amanda thought to herself as she made her way to the door, removing a glove to more easily search her purse for her Tiffany's key ring. Finally locating it, she clicked on the little built-in light designed to illuminate the keyhole — Tiffany's always thought of everything; masters of craftsmanship and practical-minded, too, which was why she utterly adored them — and slid the key into the lock. She gave it a gentle jingly twist to the right, then suddenly halted abruptly upon hearing what appeared to be the sound of a bolt turning from the other side of the door.

"Oh!... Oh!..." was the best she could manage to get out of her mouth as the door flew open and a hand gruffly snatched her wrist, forcibly yanking her inside and twisting her arm until she had landed flat on her back with a thud, like a sack of blue potatoes originally cultivated by the Peruvian Indians sometime around 200 BC and hideously overpriced at the Farmer's Market.

Where was Louis when she needed him most, Amanda cried to herself in fear and pain, then suddenly remembered Anne Marie's orthopedic surgery and said a quick prayer that all went well come Monday morning, the poor dear.

A foot dug hard into Amanda's ribcage, narrowing missing the perfect breast lift Dr. Schlemolski had performed last spring. The icy-cold steel of a gun's muzzle pressed firmly against her recently botoxed forehead. One permanent mark and Amanda would sue, provided she ever made it out of this alive.

"Don't shoot! I'm a philanthropist, darling!" she pleaded for her life, focusing fearfully on the barrel of the gun projecting out from between her eyes, not knowing why in the world a plea of philanthropy might preclude someone from pulling a trigger. But she religiously invested no fewer than twenty hours a week cooking gourmet meals at the homeless shelter with her girlfriends, which ought to account for something at the end of one's life, after all.

Feeling the icy steel of the muzzle press tighter against her forehead, Amanda Almeida watched her life flash before her eyes, just as those odd life-after-death, white-tunnel people on television documentaries were forever droning on about. She quickly mentally apologized to every last one of them for ever having discounted their tales as farfetched and somewhat boring.

In tandem with the sound of the hammer cocking into the firing position, Amanda saw herself as a young girl, giggling with her favorite cousin, Mariella, on her Aunt Cornelia's shitake mushroom farm in New York's elite South Hampton as they saddled up the Arabian ponies they'd received that Christmas from their Uncle Addison; a fleeting visual of the first time she'd ever laid eyes on James Almeida, the love of her life and most dashing, breathtakingly handsome man she'd ever crossed paths with to this day; the thick, black eyes of her firstborn glaring threatening around the delivery room, thoroughly aggravated that the birth process had interrupted a perfectly peaceful nap and angrily surveying the assorted faces cooing around him, determined to identify and exact revenge upon the culprit who'd smacked him seconds earlier, jolting breath and life into him. They were the same thick, black eyes that had peered up at her, Amanda recalled, when Louis had placed her angelic daughter into her arms and high-fived her after counting and re-counting the number of Olivia's fingers, toes, and heads.

As she heard the sound of the trigger click, Amanda spent her last second on Earth preparing to meet this A-list Jesus she had heard so much about her entire life. But the click, as good fortune would have it, hadn't derived from the trigger of the gun but a switch on the wall, suddenly flooding the vestibule area with harsh, fluorescent overhead lighting and effectively rendering Amanda blind.

"Mom!" Tony's voice rang out in horror from across the room. "Michelle! Put that down!"

Michelle dropped Tony's 9mm to the floor like Pavlov's dog, shocked by how instantaneously her Quantico training had returned to her the split-second she'd heard the unmistakable sound of a key jiggling inside the lock on her way to the kitchen to fetch an icy glass of wine.

"Oh!... Oh!..." Amanda gasped in relief, clutching her heart, despite her perfect health, once the steel had lifted from her forehead and the foot from her ribcage. As her sight began to gradually return, she stared up and blinked hard at the hazy outline of the red-haired woman hovering above her in her son's beloved, unbuttoned John Wayne flannel pajama top. She looked nothing, thank God, like the chubby, frizzied-haired teen in the photo contained in the article entitled "Teen Blows It Big Time In Home-Ec" that Mr. Kobayashi had so quickly sourced and faxed to her aboard the plane. Amanda searched her memory banks trying to recall if she'd ever, in fact, seen a more remarkable before-and-after transformation in her life. The woman was positively darling looking, even with that expression of mortified horror frozen upon her face.

As Tony bolted across the room, Michelle sealed her eyes and said a quick prayer that he'd remembered to pull his matching commemorative boxers back on. Thanking God that indeed he had, she pulled her wide-open pajama top closed with one hand and tugged her shirttail over her bare thighs with the other, feeling her knees suddenly beginning to turn into jelly. Her hominal instincts told her to dash to the bedroom, throw on her dress, fluff her hair, and apply a little lipstick, but her hostess instincts insisted that she help Tony remove his mother from the floor. Her fainting instincts, however, won out in the end, causing her to slowly sink to her knees in a light-headed, disoriented daze.

Tony came to a sharp halt, glancing wildly back and forth between his Mom on his left, extending her gloved hand to him, and Michelle on his right, swaying woozily on her knees, struggling to button Dollar's left ear onto the rest of his head. He wasn't sure which of them to attend to first. It was a polarizing feeling, like a scene straight out of "Sophie's Choice."

What lovely ringlets, Amanda thought to herself as she watched her firstborn scramble to help Michelle Dessler instead of his own mother. They resembed the natural curls she herself used to have before volunteering to participate in an experimental program at Vidal Sasson's legendary salon decades ago, the success of which had laid the foundation for literally every over-the-counter hair-straightening product on the market today.

"What the hell are you doing here, Ma!" Tony roared as he dropped to his knees in front of Michelle Dessler, exhibiting no pain or injury that Amanda could discern.

"What have I told you about that word, hmmm, young man?" she scolded him.

"What word!" he barked over his shoulder, fussing over Michelle like a panic-stricken mother hen. "Are you all right, baby?" he gently asked, smoothing his hand around her hair and repeatedly kissing her ashen cheeks.

Baby? Amanda could hardly believe her ears or contain her delight. When Michelle Dessler had first tried to kill her, she wasn't quite sure how well she would fit into the family. But never before had she heard her son refer to a girlfriend as "baby" or any other endearment, for that matter. She could swear she heard the sound of church bells clanging somewhere off in the distance, but quickly refocused herself back to the task at hand: feigning horror over his language in an attempt to shift the focus away from her own felonious breaking-and-entering.

"That 'h-e-double-hock—'"

"Don't start with me, Mom!" he barked at her again, instantly recognizing her all-time favorite tactic of turning the tables, which he was in no mood for at the moment. "You're lucky I don't place you under arrest," he threatened her before turning back and feverishly refastening the buttons he had earlier opened on Michelle's shirt.

"Oh!... Oh!" Amanda sputtered breathlessly, pressing her strand of flawless French Polynesian black pearls against her heart, like rosary beads that had been left to her in Mother Theresa's will. "What kind of young man threatens to arrest his own mother," she gasped in fabricated horror, struggling to sit herself up in as dignified and sophisticated a manner as possible, with no assistance from her son, to whom she had given life.

"The kind who has a felon for a mother!" Tony angrily shot back. "Do you understand that you could've gotten your head blown off?"

"I have never been convicted of a felony," Amanda, with fourteen misdemeanors under her belt, indignantly defended herself. If only Miriam were here, she thought. Their longstanding argument over whose son forced whom to bear the bigger cross in life would finally come to a screeching halt, with Amanda Almeida taking home the gold, never to be challenged by another girlfriend again. "And don't you dare take that tone of voice with me again, young man, or your father will hear about it, I assure you," she sternly warned with her pointed finger trailing him as he carried Michelle over to the couch.

"You bet Dad's gonna hear about it, 'cause I'm calling and telling him!" he snarled, hurriedly whisking her off the floor and carrying her over to the couch, depositing her onto the opposite side from where he had parked Michelle.

"I'm so, so terribly sorry, Mrs. Almeida," Michelle apologized profusely, her cheeks having since transformed from a lifeless pallor to the hue of a raging wildfire.

An apology. Amanda liked that. A young woman with respect and concern for her elders, plus a show of genuine regret and remorse. How terribly refreshing in this day and age, especially when compared to the surly attitude her own son was exhibiting, and all for her egregious crime of having thoughtfully and caringly dropped in to check on the state of his health as any good mother would do. This is the thanks she received for her saintly acts of selflessness.

"Geeziz, Ma, ya better not have hurt yourself!" Tony threatened her, fearing for his own skin upon noticing her fretfully studying and nursing her hand. "Dad'll kill me if ya broke something!"

"Just a nail, darling," Amanda moaned as if she had cracked a femur, intent upon accruing as much sympathy for herself as possible in the hopes that he'd decide to go easy on her in the upcoming, tedious interrogation she knew he'd be launching into at any moment.

"I have a repair kit right in my purse," Michelle eagerly offered.

"Not to worry, darling. Jose makes house calls," Amanda replied in weakened, quavering voice, graciously letting her off the hook.

Tony dropped his head and rubbed the back of his neck, taking a few steps away to collect himself before circling back around and hovering over his Mom again. Crisscrossing his arms firmly against his chest, he quickly glanced over at Michelle with an expression suggesting that it might be a good time to leave the room if she'd rather not have to eventually testify against him on the witness stand. But her doe-eyed response evoked a reminder of her earlier hand-scrolled request that he "Be nice!" to his Mom, so he closed his eyes and resigned himself to at least beginning with the good-cop-good-cop methodology that Michelle preferred. He could always easily glissade into a more aggressive line of questioning — provided he could even sustain his anger. His Mom's notoriously incredulous explanations and excuses were always so circularly insane that he usually found himself throwing in the mental towel about midway through his interrogation and dedicating himself to coming up with ways of driving her nuts instead. He was never going to win a battle of wits or wills against her anyway: Amanda Almeida could talk her way around the commission of a premeditated presidential assassination just by hanging in there long enough to send even the most seasoned Secret Service interrogator running for the nearest psychiatric unit with clumps of his own hair clutched in his fists.

"Would ya like to tell me what you're doing here, Ma?" he began in a voice so calm and patient, he even surprised himself.

"I was afraid you were dead, of course, darling," Amanda replied without hesitation, feigning shock that he would even feel a need to ask the question, as if the answer couldn't be any more perfectly obvious and clear.

"Dead," he cocked his head to the side and repeated, taking a moment to shoot a covert glance over at Michelle. Responding to her eyeballs' plea that he remain relaxed and simply allow his mother to explain, Tony obligingly nodded "fine" and returned his attention to the criminal on the other end of his couch.

"Why would I be dead, Mom?" he politely inquired.

"How soon they forget Elvis," Amanda scoffed, turning to Michelle and shaking her head in complete dismay, then taking a moment to remove her glove and graciously extend her hand. "Normally there's a gentleman somewhere in the room to make the proper introductions, but... well..." she sighed, "Amanda Almeida, darling. Charmed."

"Oh, uhh... Michelle..."

"Michelle Dessler," Tony cut in, "which I get the funny feeling you already knew, Ma."

"I feel just terrible about all this," Michelle sincerely reassured her likely mother-in-law-to-be, trying to think of worse possible circumstances under which they could've met and coming up completely empty.

Tony was tempted to remind Michelle that his Mom should be the one wildly blushing and begging forgiveness, but quietly nodded his head and blinked a few times instead, opting to say nothing for now. It was probably best for Michelle to personally witness and experience, firsthand, how remarkably adept his Mom was in manipulating her adversaries into a state of stupefied speechlessness.

"So, uhh... what exactly does Elvis have to do with your busting into my apartment, Mom?" he inquired, tightening his arms across his chest and tucking his hands beneath his biceps as if proactively seeking to prevent himself from involuntarily reaching out and strangling her at some point.

"Well, you had said you were self-medicating, darling," she flittered matter-of-factly, smoothing the hemline of her Givenchy and glancing around for her missing Proenza Schouler shoe, "so quite naturally I assumed you'd be lying dead on the floor by now. What else was I to do under the circumstances?"

"Ya could've called me, Mom," he answered with a stone-faced stare.

"Don't be ridiculous, darling. Dead people don't answer telephones," she stiffly replied. "Just ask Elvis and any number of other high-profile drug abusers... Besides, you made me promise not to call you again this evening, remember?... Hmmm?"

Like Amanda Almeida had ever kept a promise in her entire life, Tony thought to himself. His eyes slowly angled toward Michelle again, whose eyebrows were now sitting high on her head, arched in both wonderment and amusement. He almost chuckled aloud. At least she was beginning to get the picture. He might've ordinarily just thrown up his hands and ended his questioning at this point in time, but decided to give Michelle the full, complete and chilling tour of the inside of Amanda Almeida's so-called mind.

"If you were so convinced I was dead, how come ya didn't call 911?" he persevered.

"And have them find you lying naked on the floor?" Amanda scoffed, dismissing his absurd suggestion.

"And, umm... why would I be naked, Ma?" he inquired, ironically standing in nothing more than his commemorative John Wayne boxers, which he'd nearly forgotten to even throw on before dashing into the living room earlier.

"Elvis might've asked his dear mother the same question, darling," Amanda innocently retorted with a small frown, indicating a moment of deep reflection. "It's a mystery for the ages why drug abusers always seem to be naked when their bodies are found... Marilyn Monroe... Lenny Bruce... Elvis Presley... John Belushi... Jim Morrison of The Doors was found naked in his bathtub, darling. You remember his music, don't you? You used to love it when your father played it for you when you were just a baby... A toddler, just barely walking... Oh, and those gorgeous black curls," she sentimentally strolled down Memory Lane with a slight quiver in her voice, snapping open her purse in search for her French lace-trimmed monogrammed handkerchief just in case some tears should fall. What were the chances of that ever happening, Tony wondered to himself, turning his eyes back to Michelle to be sure she wasn't missing a second of this premiere command performance by the Yoda of drama queens.

"I'm not a 'drug abuser,' Mom," he decided to state just for the record.

"Yes, darling. And I'm sure Elvis was oft to assure himself of the very same thing," Amanda fleered.

She had him in a handy corner, he had to admit. If he defended himself by telling her that he'd never even taken a pill, he'd effectively be busting himself for lying.

"How did you even get in here, Ma?" he asked, which was something he genuinely wanted to know.

"Why, your friend opened the door and pulled me in, darling," Amanda replied with technical accuracy, amazed that her son hadn't seen that one coming from a mile awhile. Tony sighed and stooped over, picking her Tiffany key ring off the floor and silently dangling it on the end of his finger in front of her face.

"Oh, please, darling, I can hardly be held responsible for how sloppy your sister is with her keys," Amanda tsk-ed. "And don't you use that tone of voice with me!" she added sternly, hoping it would incite him enough to throw him off the subject entirely, since this was the area in which she was her most vulnerable and defenseless.

Tony's mouth dropped open, perched to point out that he hadn't even said anything. But like a dog reacting to the sound of a whistle that only canines can hear, he immediately heeled upon detecting the silent "ahem" ringing out from Michelle's throat.

"You stole Olivia's key?" he patiently and professionally continued, glancing back and telegraphing to Michelle that, in his personal opinion, his remarkable restraint deserved to be rewarded with the sexual favor of his choice, which he fully intended to cash in on the minute he threw his Mom out the door.

"Don't be silly. I simply found the key and had every intention of returning it," Amanda casually replied.

"Then what's it doing on your key ring?" he stubbornly persisted.

"Why, I put it there so I wouldn't lose it, of course," she smoothly countered with the speed and grace of a reigning champ defending his heavyweight title against a 90something geriatric patient.

"Have ya heard of this new invention called the doorbell, Ma?" he asked, struggling to keep his sarcasm level at a record low.

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I have, darling. And there isn't anything the least bit new about it, either. Your father and I have had one for ages, right by the front door somewhere..."

"Then why didn't you ring it?" Tony persevered.

"Why would I need to ring the doorbell of a dead man when I had a key?" Amanda argued with perfect logic, grimacing as she watched her son take custody of the precious key she'd gone so far out of her way to make a duplicate of a few weeks back after innocently coming across it while ransacking Olivia's room for a cigarette in a moment of weakness.

Tony dropped the key ring into her lap, inadvertently setting off the "Moon River" music chip that Jim Almeida had Tiffany's install for their twentieth anniversary.

"It was our wedding song," Amanda turned and informed Michelle with a slight mist in her eyes. Tony shook his head and groaned. Stand back, America. Here comes the waterworks.

"Do you understand that you can't just go breaking into people's homes!" he snapped, feeling himself growing a little hot under the collar despite the fact that he was bare-chested.

"You're not 'people,' darling. You're my son... although one would think you were born to some cave-dwelling couple to hear you speak to your mother in that tone. And don't you roll those eyes at me again unless you would like me to start counting to three!" Amanda warned, scrambling to her feet and planting her fists firmly on her slender hips, demonstrating under no uncertain terms that she meant business.

"Try counting to thirty-seven, Ma," he sighed in disbelief, shooting another glance at Michelle and trying not to chuckle out loud at the ha-ha-you're-in-big-trouble grin she was shooting back at him.

"I don't care if you're a hundred and thirty-seven, mister!" Amanda sternly informed him, "You take that tone with me one more time and you'll pay for it, I assure you!"

"I'd have to take you into custody for assaulting a federal officer," he taunted her, stepping up his wise-guy attitude solely for the benefit of Michelle's enjoyment. "You know how bad ya look in orange, too, Ma," he added as an innocent afterthought, successfully hitting a sore spot.

"I can easily see you in a nice warm tangerine, however," Michelle quickly interjected, desperately seeking to make peace at this point. She thought seriously for a moment about exiting the room before Tony incited his mother any further. Thirty-seven, schmirty-seven; Amanda Almeida looked like just the type to crack him one for mouthing off to her, and Michelle didn't want to be anywhere around when she did. She knew there was no possible way she would ever be able to contain herself from bursting into fits of unbridled, intractable laughter, which would only put her in even worse stead with her likely mother-in-law-to-be than she assumed she already was. The expression Amanda sported was only too reminiscent of Aunt Hildie's right before she'd charge after Danny like a bat out of hell. If it weren't for Aunt Hildie, in fact, Danny would've never gone on to win the gold for the thousand-meter run in the regional High School Track Competitions.

"You know darned well I was forced to walk the runway in that gown for the noble purpose of raising funds for starving Parisian artists. And if you dare to ever bring that up to me again, you will most assuredly regret it, young man. Have I made myself perfectly clear?" Amanda fumed in all dead seriousness, getting right up into Tony's face. He didn't budge an inch, opting to simply snicker instead.

"Ya didn't look that bad, Ma," he sympathetically assured her. "At least ya didn't take a header in it like ya did in that purple pants suit. Remember?"

"Oh!... Oh!..." Amanda reeled back in horror of the mortifying memory.

"May I get you a cup of coffee or tea, Mrs. Almeida?" Michelle offered as Amanda sunk herself into the couch, her flawless botoxed complexion suddenly appearing more than a bit peaked.

"Yes, darling, thank you. I'd love a martini," she replied in a low, breathless moan, pushing against the sides of her perfectly sculptured hair as if trying to shove her brains back inside of her head.

Would ya like some smelling salts with that? Tony silently snickered to himself as he trailed Michelle into the kitchen, confident that she had no idea of how to even begin to make a martini. He also thought it wouldn't hurt to play it on the safe side, since Mrs. Sanchez kept the vodka in the cabinet below the kitchen sink, right next to her cleaning supplies.

Michelle stood beside him at the counter, teasingly bumping her hip into his as he produced a shaker and various other mixing implements from an overhead cabinet.

"You're gonna _getttttt it_... Narnnie, narnnie, _narrrr-narr_," she tauntingly sing-sang in a hushed whisper as he bumped her back a little harder each time she careened into his hip.

"Shut up, stupid," he grinned and growled under his breath as he splashed just a touch of vermouth on top of the ice inside the shaker.

"I'm telling Daddy you called me 'stupid,'" Michelle threateningly whispered back, grabbing a handful of commemorative sun-bleached flannel carcasses adorning the back of his boxers.

"I'll tell him ya tried to snuff out Mommy," he one-upped her with a confident smirk, giving the martini a stir, not a shake, and feeling an awful lot like James Bond in the process.

He thought for a moment about how extremely well Michelle's introduction to his Mom had gone, all things considered. He could tell that his Mom seemed to like her just from the way she called her "darling." It was different from the everyday, gratuitous "darling" she used in lieu of hopelessly trying to remember the names of his Dad's scores of stuffy business associates, or her own overflowing stable of snobby socialites, highfalutin philanthropists, deadly serious charity organizers, half-hysterical caterers, fashion designers, cosmeticians, and all those other highly affected weirdoes, airheads, and self-absorbed bores. Michelle was probably a breath of fresh air, by comparison.

In any event, he was relieved to find that he wasn't the least bit concerned about Michelle making the Almeida cut. Especially not after his Dad eventually got a load of her. There was no chance he'd react in any other way but to instantly fall in love with her, Tony knew. His Dad had never been a man with an eye for the ladies, but he'd always had a nose for them. He could sniff out a class act from a couple of continents away. Conversely, he could also always smell trouble ahead, just as he had with Nina. The first comment out of his mouth had been, "I'm sorry to have to say it, son, but there's something I just don't trust about that gal," Tony recalled. Talk about a keen sixth sense.

"Three olives and one onion. Never forget that, baby," he instructed her, dropping them one by one into the bottom of the crystal glass his Mom had gifted him with for no other reason than to ensure that there was always a hand-blown glass in the apartment in the likely event she felt like having a martini — or holding one, to be more specific. She had absolutely no tolerance for alcohol, becoming downright woozy and inarticulate beyond half a glass, but nevertheless ordering them with abandon, liking how they looked in her hand and complemented her outfits and jewelry.

That was not to say that his Dad didn't have to leave a meeting to bail Amanda and her girlfriends out of the pokie every couple of months or so, usually following one of their notorious weekly ladies' luncheons at their favorite haunt: the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. His Dad sarcastically referred to it as "The Polio Lounge," given the condition the girls would always be in whenever lunch had gone an hour too long. Without doubt, Amanda Almeida and her Silver Posse were a feisty bunch, all with misdemeanor records for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, which they proudly regarded as badges of honor and bragged about incessantly. The only real fear Tony had, in fact, was that his Mom and the girls might ultimately corrupt Michelle. But he had already decided upon a rule that he planned to enforce just as soon as his Mom began inevitably dragging Michelle around to various ladies' lunches, garden events, and other social soirees: he would allow her to take Michelle anywhere but The Polio Lounge. She was just too innocent and novice to be cavorting with that particular coterie of liquid-lunch consumers. The chances that she, a federal agent, would eventually end up with a rap sheet of her very own, just through mere association, were a little too uncomfortably high and foreseeable for Tony's blood.

"Never carry it with your hand on the glass itself," he demonstrated to Michelle, wrapping her fingers around the delicate crystal stem. "The body heat from your fingers will warm the contents up, at which point we'll have a crisis on our hands that'll make a nuke detonation on American soil look like a walk in the park, y'hear?"

Michelle seemed a little nervous, but nodded affirmatively as he turned her by the shoulders and steered her off on her maiden martini voyage. He felt like a proud, though heart-wrenched, parent placing his five-year-old aboard the kindergarten school bus for the very first time and watching it carry her away into a strange new world — in his Mom's case, exceptionally strange — where Michelle would have to sink or swim and basically fend for herself, without him standing by to protect her. He knew that in order for the two of them to successfully cultivate a genuine relationship, they were going to have to achieve it together, between each other, through conversation and over time and that neither he, nor anybody else, was going to be able to force a bond to form. But just as long as Michelle remembered to keep her fingers off the glass, and hopefully made it over to the couch without spilling a drop, Tony felt confident that Amanda Almeida and Michelle Dessler Almeida, her personal grandchild-making machine, were pretty much destined to get along famously.


	13. Their Anniversary

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 13: Their Anniversary_

"What's that?" he inquired casually, in stark contrast to the alarm that gripped him inside.

"Uhh... I'd say it was your battleship, dear," Michelle responded with a suppressed grin, toe-testing the temperature before stepping in and easing herself beneath the steamy, sudsy water.

"_My_ battleship?" Tony snorted with an unconvincing show of astonishment, shifting his knees back slightly to make a little more room for her on the opposite end of the tub. "I don't own any battleships, Michelle," he assured her with a bewildered scoff. "C'mere... Let's see that..."

"Really?" she challenged his veracity, not quite ready to relinquish custody of the grey plastic model just yet. "Funny, it was right in the cabinet under the sink," she reported, slumping down into a more comfortable position. "There's a submarine under there, too."

"Huh. No kidding," Tony replied, feigning detached disinterest as he refocused his attention on the mountain range he'd been carefully sculpting out of the suds floating on the water in front of him. "Probably one of Mrs. Sanchez's grandsons'. She brings the kids over when she's cleaning sometimes..."

"Uh-huh," Michelle responded, unable to help but notice that the battleship was the exact same model she had assembled decades ago, except for the brass radar unit, double cranes, and door hangers that he had evidently replaced the original plastic ones with.

"Hey, don't... Watch the—"

"Watch what?" Michelle innocently asked, peering up at him as she deliberately, though carefully, fiddled with the delicate gun turrets.

"Just — just let me see it for a second," he said with a soapy hand foisted out at her, suddenly seeming terribly concerned, Michelle thought, for a man claiming to have never laid eyes on the battleship before.

"In a second. I'm not done looking at it yet," she taunted him, sensing the steady increase in his anxiety level as she noodled with the brass aircraft hanger doors. She took an extra torturous few moments to peer closely at the main stacks before settling the ship back in the water and giving it a push, watching him scramble to move his suds mountain off to the side.

Geeziz, she almost hit the iceberg, Tony silently snarled to himself, struggling to maintain his air of nonchalance. Gingerly lifting his prized model battleship up to eye level, he prayed that she hadn't put too much pressure on the brass cranes, which were always coming loose no matter how many times he carefully re-glued them to the main stacks. He fretted, knowing that if he had to reinforce them, it would be a good month before his battleship was seaworthy again.

"Huh. Kinda looks a little like the Bismarck," he commented offhandedly, inspecting the starboard rudder area in a panic, only too painfully aware of how impossible replacement parts were to locate these days.

"Looks an awful lot like a Bismarck model I put together when I was a kid," Michelle puckishly grinned.

His eyes shot up at her with an angry glare, knowing he was busted and resenting having to acknowledge it.

"I didn't even know they made a Barbie Bismarck," he sarcastically grumbled, his ego still smarting from earlier when she'd discovered his half-empty bottle of Mr. Bubble under the sink and snickered.

"I wouldn't know. Mine was the same exact Skill Level Three 1/400 Bismarck as that one. Slapped it together in fifty-five minutes without even using nippers," she immodestly added.

"Sure ya did," he agreed, nodding sarcastically. "How old were ya? About twenty?"

Michelle smirked, thinking back to how equally smug and defensive Danny always used to get whenever she'd display her knowledge and expertise in areas that boys arrogantly thought they had the right to dominate, like model building.

"Skill Level _Three_, ages ten to twelve," she repeated slowly, as though she were communicating with a chimpanzee. "I was a mere eight years old at the time."

"Big deal," he responded, wholly unimpressed. "I assembled the Kung Fu Shaolin Temple when I was seven."

He hated to have to rain on her parade, but the truth was the truth, after all.

"Ah-huh. With help from somebody, maybe," she responded. "Your grandfather, I'll bet."

Tony neither confirmed nor denied.

"I was already doing the King Kong Glow-in-the-Dark at the age of six, Michelle," he defensively informed her, annoyed that his model-building credentials were even being brought into question.

"Bet ya weren't doing the Lost In Space Cyclops in thirty-five minutes," she shamelessly bragged.

"Yeah, right," he replied, almost laughing aloud. Everybody knew that the Lost In Space Cyclops was a defective product. It had taken him nearly that long just to get the eye in.

"Ask my Aunt Gert," she invited him. "Want her number? She was the one who timed me... Ask her to tell you about the Level Three Batmobile I assembled in under an hour."

"Not the Aurora, with the 110 precision pieces, detailed chassis, and Batman and Robin figures, ya didn't," he confidently scoffed, knowing clear well that there wasn't a soul alive who could've whipped that baby together in less than an hour and a half.

"Nah, we po' folk couldn't afford the Aurora. That was the rich kids' model, for the Little Lord Fauntleroys on the other side of town," she verbally slapped him upside the head, feeling he deserved it after that condescending Barbie Bismarck crack he had made.

He opted to remain silently focused on his wobbly brass embellishments, resisting the temptation to rub in the fact that his Aurora Batmobile had also come with a free annual comic book subscription, knowing it would only make her more jealous of him than she obviously already was.

"Let's see that again," she said, gesturing for him to sail the battleship back to her. "I'll bet I know why those pieces aren't sticking."

He thought about it for a moment, then reluctantly about-faced and skimmed his Bismarck across the water, folding his arms across his chest and shooting her a look as if to warn her that she'd better handle it properly this time if she knew what was good for her. He watched her lift the ship up and slowly turn it back and forth, squinting as she closely examined the seal on each of the brass pieces.

"Zap-A-Gap CA-7?" she safely assumed after a minute or two.

"Ya know of a better glue?" he snidely queried, suddenly feeling the familiar pang that always hit him whenever he was reminded of his grandfather; in this case, the man's uncanny ability to consistently select the proper glue for any job. Though Pop Almeida had passed away more than two decades ago, and Tony himself had not kept abreast of the technological advances in bonding agents over the years, he was certain that if Pop were still around, he'd be giving Michelle a run for her money right about now. The man was a veritable mucilage genius in his day. While other model enthusiasts were mindlessly relying upon the standard cyanoacrylate adhesive that came in the box, Pop was breaking new ground with fly-fishing glues, the properties of which not only offered hands down superior waterproofing, but even stood up to harsh salt water. Determining which glue was best equipped to withstand Mr. Bubble's corrosive elements would've been a walk in the park for Pop.

Michelle shrugged, perfectly content not to pursue the discussion of glue any further. He was obviously using the green Zap-A-Gap, she had quickly surmised, likely unaware of the superior super-thin pink variety, specifically designed to penetrate those tiny holes that precluded the brass from forming an airtight seal with the plastic. But far be it for her to impart information he clearly wasn't interested in hearing about.

"So, what did you decide to cook?" she asked sweetly, their eyes remaining competitively locked like rams' horns in the heat of battle.

"Are ya trying to say there's something wrong with Zap-A-Gap, Michelle?" he challenged her.

"Not at all, dear... as long as you're using the right color, that is," she blithely replied with another light shrug, watching him grimace at the mere thought that she might possibly possess a superior knowledge of modern-day bonding substances. "Tell me what kind of vegetables I can have in that omelet again?"

"Any kind ya want... except for Brussel Sprouts," he muttered, mentally wincing, as he always did, at the mere thought of Brussel Sprouts and instantly flashing back to the day that he, his Dad, and grandfather had all sworn off them for life.

Tony was only five-years-old at the time his Mom had been cramming an entire week for her upcoming Brussel Spouts exam, scheduled to be given the following Monday by the young up-and-coming Austrian-born, French cuisine-trained master chef Wolfgang Puck. Amanda had joined his 8-week vegetable class almost immediately after the Almeidas had moved from New York to Bel Air, where cooking haute cuisine was all the rage among her new crowd of California girlfriends. Since New York's wealthy housewives wouldn't know where to find their own kitchens if somebody drew a map for them, Amanda had a lot of lost time and ground to cover if she ever wished to get up to speed and had therefore committed herself to not only making the grade in Wolfgang's class, but pulling a higher mark than any of her far more experienced friends. Consequently, every day that week, from sunrise to sunset, it had been Brussel Sprouts in one nightmarish form or another: Brussel Sprouts Cocotte for breakfast when all Tony wanted was his beloved Count Chocula; Brussels Sprouts Cockaigne Canapes for lunch when he could've killed for a simple grilled cheese sandwich; Chestnut Pasta with Brussel Sprouts Sauce for dinner when his Spaghetii-O's were literally screaming his name from behind the kitchen cabinet doors.

By the conclusion of Thursday's Brussel Sprouts and Couscous lunch, Tony was beside himself. He secreted a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of Wonder bread from the pantry, quietly crept upstairs, packed as many toys as would fit into his Superman suitcase, and ran away from home. But his master plan to live with Jed Clampett's family in the Beverly Hillbillies' mansion was quickly quashed when only blocks away from his house, an LAPD police cruiser had recognized the telltale signs of his bulging suitcase, taken him into custody, and transported him down to the station house.

Along the way, the officers had tried to cajole his name out of him by bribing him with a Snickers bar, but Tony informed them that he wasn't allowed to accept candy from strangers. Both men assured him that officers of the law were the exception to the rule, presenting their badges for his inspection and even letting him wear one on a chain around his neck. But Tony remembered a World War II story his grandfather had told him about the enemy craftily swapping uniforms and dog tags with their American captives and decided not to simply take them at their word based solely on their uniforms, shields, and police car.

Upon reaching the station house, the desk Sergeant had attempted to unhand Tony of his Superman suitcase, hoping to find an I.D. tag inside. But Tony had seen enough Adam 12 episodes to confidently inform the officer that he would have to produce a search warrant first.

"Hey, you're a smart little fella," the desk Sergeant, with a five-year-old of his own back home, had chuckled heartily, tousling Tony's thick mop of curls as a group of officers circled around and joined in the laughter. Tony, failing to see the humor, continued to frown suspiciously, quietly memorizing the features of the various faces leaning in and laughing at him, just as Master Kan on "Kung Fu" had taught Grasshopper Kwai Chang Caine to always do whenever confronted by a potentially dangerous mob of unknowns.

"It is said that a Shaolin priest can walk through walls," Tony quietly began reciting from memory, borrowing Master Kan's highly Americanized Chinese accent. "Looked for, he cannot be seen... Listened for, he cannot be heard... Touched, he cannot be felt..."

His ancient credo was promptly met with a host of wide-eyed stares, dropped jaws, and a couple of "What the hell is the kid talking about?" grumblings. One exceptionally tall and burly officer had decided to try a slightly different tactic at that point, stepping forward and authoritatively demanding Tony's name, rank, and serial number. Tony, who'd never been assigned a rank that he was aware of, knew that there weren't any numbers on his Count Chocula cereal box either, so he refused to respond at all, figuring it had to be a trick question of some sort. A policewoman then came up with the bright suggestion of checking his clothes, thinking that if he were enrolled in a day camp or a swimming club, as her own children were, they'd likely find an iron-on name tag somewhere. But after forcing him to endure the indignity of a collar and waistband search, the officers failed to come up with anything beyond "Izod," "Wrangler," and "Underoos."

All in all, it had taken a bit of doing, but the officers eventually tricked him into spilling his guts, announcing that Superman was on the phone ordering him to return to his home. They had even gone so far as to hand the phone over to Tony. After personally speaking with the strange visitor from another planet — if you can't trust Superman, who can you trust, after all — Tony obligingly revealed his identity to the desk Sergeant, just as the Man of Steel had requested. It was two years before he would come to realize he had been hoodwinked after Petey had gently broken the news that he had probably just been talking to some cop calling on an extension from another room in the station house.

"Don't feel bad," Petey had commiserated, towering over his blood brother and empathetically patting his shoulder. "They duped me into showing 'em where my father stashed his pot, telling me that Wonder Woman wanted to buy a nickel bag."

Needless to say, Amanda had been horrified to find two police officers on her doorstep, one holding her five-year-old's hand and the other holding his Superman suitcase out to her. After the officers had respectfully declined her generous offer of a cup of coffee and a nice slice of Brussel Sprouts quiche, Amanda had sent Tony sent straight to his room, vowing to "deal with him" the second she figured out the key to baking a Brussel Sprouts soufflé without it deflating while still in the oven.

Tony was sitting on his bed, building a Walking Giant Robot with his Erector Set and fretting over the sizeable amount of trouble he figured himself to be in, when his grandfather had creaked the door open and _pssssst-_ed at him from the hallway.

"Grab your gear and follow me, kid," Pop Almeida instructed in a hushed whisper, frantically waving him toward the door while repeatedly checking over his shoulder to ensure that the coast was still clear.

"Where are we going?" Tony asked.

"_Shhhh!_ We're bustin' the hell outta here, that's where," Pop had whispered back with desperation in his voice and a look of steely determination in his eyes.

Once in the hallway, Tony's heart soared upon seeing Pop's Army-issue duffle bag slung over his shoulder and stuffed to the gills. As perfect timing would have it, Pop Almeida had likewise reached the Brussel Sprouts breaking point that afternoon and, no sooner able to hack another one of his daughter-in-law's horrific culinary concoctions than eat his own hand, had been inspired by Tony's great, albeit unfortunately failed, escape. Nowhere near as limber in his sixties as when he had conducted reconnaissance missions as a young, strapping Army Alamo Scout behind enemy lines in World War II, and hindered by a limp from the piece of shrapnel still embedded in his leg, his short, wiry, hundred-pounds-soaking-wet grandfather had nevertheless succeeded in stealthily evading the detection of the same patrol car that had hauled Tony down to the station earlier; plus, snoopy old lady Von Vandergrossen and her two ankle-hungry Chihuahuas; a SWAT unit, which turned out to be part of a Rockford Files film crew; and a Van Cleef & Arpels delivery truck with an armed security guard and driver.

As Pop steadily blazed a trail into the foothills behind a cluster of estates, he suggested they set up a temporary camp until they could hammer out an agreement as to where they should ultimately settle down and begin living the good life: Jed Campett's mansion, or Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island, which Pop was pushing hard for, given his irrational contempt for Buddy Ebsen. Pop had lost all respect for the actor, who'd originally been cast as the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, but was forced to give up the role after succumbing to the aluminum dust contained in his experimental "tin" makeup.

"What kind of a pansy-ass gets hospitalized on account of makeup, for cryssake," Pop had snarled from across the family room the night Amanda had brought up the little-known trivia fact during Tony's first screening of the Wizard of Oz when he was a four-year-old. The fact that Ebsen's Tin Man role had been taken over by Jack Haley had only served to aggravate his grandfather that much further.

"Fag!" Pop barked loudly every third or fourth time Jack Haley would appear in a scene. Tony, who was watching the movie from the safety of his mother's lap — spooked by the way the Wicked Witch of the East's legs had curled up under Dorothy's house and not quite sure how he even felt about the Munchkins yet — had laughed heartily every time his grandfather yelled out "fag," much to Amanda's horror and disapproval.

"There is absolutely no evidence that Jack Haley is homosexual," Amanda had scolded Pop. "He's married, for goodness sake, and has a son who's dating Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minelli."

"Now, there's a dyke if I ever seen one," Pop snorted, ignoring his daughter-in-law's incessant tsk-ing. "A fag and a dyke getting married in Hollywood. Ya don't see that happening too often, huh?"

Tony didn't know what "fag" or "dyke" meant, nor was he entirely sure he even knew what a Munchkin was at that point, but had nevertheless found it amusing to see his Mom becoming more and more upset, her hands flying up to cover his ears each time Pop yelled out the pejorative. Later that night, when Tony had crawled into his grandfather's bed after having awoken from a horrifying nightmare about flying monkeys in little red jackets and bellhop hats, he'd asked him what a "fag" was.

"You don't wanna know," his grandfather had assured him in the gruff, Brooklyn longshoreman's voice that sounded like it ought to belong to a man twice Pop's height and weight. "Let's just put it to ya this way... We'd all be doing the Hitler goose-step right now if it had been up to them pansy-asses to win the war."

"Mommy says we're supposed to be kind and respect homer-sexels, just like anybody else," Tony said, not even sure what qualified a person as a homosexual beyond spraying oneself with silver paint.

"Your mama's a whacky liberal," Pop guaranteed him. "Just stay the hell away from bath houses and don't beat any of them up, or you'll get your ass thrown in jail. That's all ya gotta remember."

"What about being kind, like Mommy says?" Tony thought he should double-check.

"Ya can if ya wanna. It won't kill ya. Just don't be too kind or they'll be askin' ya out on a date," his grandfather strongly advised. "So tell me what the hell's got ya so scared over a buncha flying baboons anyway, huh?"

"One of them ate, umm... he ate through the window screen and then... and he was flying at me and he was gonna get... he was gonna come and get me, like Toto!" Tony leapt up from beneath his grandfather's Army-issue blanket, recounting the frightening event with a deep frown of concern creased into his brow and his fingers nervously flailing open and closed, reenacting the gestures the winged creature had made as it swooped in with the intention of carrying him back to the Wicked Witch of the West's ominous fortress.

"Eh, you were just having a bad dream from all those Twinkies ya ate during the movie, kid. Ya got nothin' to fear from them monkeys. Trust me. They weren't even real," Pop had assured him. "Half of them was just a bunch of stuffed animals flying around on a string, like that Gorgeous George monkey ya got in your room."

"Curious George," Tony had corrected him.

"Gorgeous... Curious... Who gives a rat's ass. They were nothing but stuffed animals on strings, is my point. And the other half of them was midgets. And the other half was kids not much older than you, dressed up in faggy monkey costumes... Ya want fear? Try one of the Luftwaffe's Henschel 123's bearing down on your ass with both twin-MG17 machine guns firing. _That's_ when ya got yourself something to fear," his grandfather said, simulating the rat-a-tat sounds of the machine guns, poking Tony's ribs and making him squeal until he was certain he was going to wet the bed if he didn't stop laughing soon. His grandfather then promised to check the window screen at first light and give Tony the all-clear before he went back in his room again. Tony, in return, promised to cut down on his late-night Twinkie consumption.

"Thank God, 'cause if them cheeks of yours get any fatter, I swear they're just gonna up and explode someday, TonyBalonie," Pop had razzed him, evoking a whole new round of uncontrollable laughter from his beloved four-year-old pride and joy: the spitting image of himself when he was that age. Tony had felt like he was looking into a mirror when Pop had shown him the well-worn, faded picture of himself at four years old, taken in front of the old Brooklyn brownstone Pop and his two sisters had been born and raised in. It was as though Tony had been cloned from his grandfather's cells, from his full head of thick black curls and the enormous brown eyes that his face had yet to grow into, to the full lips wedged between two voluminous chipmunk cheeks and the classic baby-fat stomach he sported.

"Pipe down, Balonie, or your pinko-liberal mama will be in here bustin' my nuts about you needin' your sleep... like you're eighty, or something," his grandfather growled, dragging him back under the musty, Blitzkrieg-scented blanket and draping his thin, though still powerful, arm protectively across his shoulder. "Next thing I know, I'll be eating cat food in one of them homes for old geezers and wishin' I didn't dive for cover when that Luftwaffe tried mowin' my ass down."

Tony roared with laughter again, reaching up from beneath the blanket to mop the tears from his cheeks with the cuffs of his Dr. Dentons. Between the mental visual of his cheeks exploding across the room and the machine gun rib-tickling he'd just endured, he felt like he was about to faint. Pop Almeida was the funniest person alive, as far as TonyBalonie was concerned. He wasn't even sure what "geezer" meant, but it was just the way that his grandfather said things sometimes, in that gravely longshoreman's voice of his, that would invariably send Tony into fits of hilarity. It also never failed to slay him whenever Pop referred to him as "TonyBalonie," a nickname he'd been calling him for as far back as Tony could remember. The image in his head of his grandfather eating cat food had nearly killed him, as well, despite knowing it was the last thing that was ever going to happen to Pop: Even though he was a cranky and cantankerous old man who was forever growling at his daughter-in-law, calling her a communist and using undesirable language in front of her innocent four-year-old, Amanda Almeida nonetheless doted and fussed over Pop with just as much fervor as she did her husband and son.

Tony thought about how much he still desperately missed his grandfather to this day, flashing back again to the evening of their great escape when their grandiose plans for the future had been roundly snuffed the second that Jim Almeida — a former special-ops Beach Jumper with the Navy's Amphibious Forces in Vietnam — had suddenly appeared at their campsite out of nowhere. As hard as Pop had gone on to argue that Sing Sing's death row would be preferable to another heinous course of Brussel Sprouts, Jim Almeida had insisted that they were just going to have to buck up and live through it, regardless. Tony had dreaded the thought of returning home, not so much for fear of punishment, but because he was so stuffed on peanut butter sandwiches at that point that he sincerely doubted he could make it down the hill without chucking his guts up.

But much to his surprise and enormous relief, it turned out that his Dad, whom Tony had expected to be angry and frantic with worry, was not only sympathetic to his and Pop's Brussel Sprouts plight, but appeared to be in no particular rush to get back home that night himself. Although Jim Almeida had thus far managed to miss every single one of his wife's culinary atrocities, pleading breakfast and dinner meetings with important clients, the nauseating aroma of Brussel Sprouts had been torturing him all week long, infiltrating every fiber of his every suit, shirt, and tie, all of which reeked regardless of how much of his favorite Old Spice cologne he'd douse himself in. The night air of the foothills was so succulently crisp and clean, and such a refreshing relief from the stifling stench pervading every nook and cranny of the house, that after contacting Amanda on the walkie-talkie and assuring her that Tony and Pop were perfectly fine, all three generations of Almeida men had ended up sleeping under the stars that night.

Tony would always remember the evening as his first introduction to the daredevil life associated with the noble and honorable task of serving one's country. Pop and his Dad had regaled and enthralled him for hours, each trying to one-up the other with their assorted World War II and Vietnam stories, pausing occasionally to allow Tony to interject a tale or two of his own about his glory days of fighting the Nazis under the command of Vic Morrow, having to borrow scenes from the "Combat" reruns he and Pop religiously watched every Monday night at 7:00 since he didn't really have any war stories of his own to recount.

It had also been the night that had introduced Tony to the joys of roughing it in the wilderness, inspiring him to ask his Dad if the three of them could go on a real camping trip sometime. Just a mere few weeks later, he'd found himself headed off on their first Almeida-Men-Only/No-Girls-Allowed annual camping excursion. Two years later, Petey became the fourth marauding member of their unit, respectfully begging that they add Cowboys and Indians scenarios to the war-reenactment agenda and volunteering to be the Indian who bit the dust every time, provided he could don a loincloth, wear the war paint he'd made from the berries he'd picked in the woods, and howl at the moon whenever the mood struck.

Tony came to live for their annual Fall adventure: pitching camp in the same spot each year — an uncivilized patch of wilderness that his Dad and grandfather had scouted out about seventy miles north — cooking cowboy-style grub over an open campfire; bedding down in sleeping bags, sans tents, just like The Duke always did; talking about men's stuff, like hunting knives, fishing tackle, and killing the enemy; and Tony's personal favorite new activity, peeing in the great outdoors, a habit that had taken Amanda months to break him of after the Almeida Men's first camping trip. There was just something terribly rustic, liberating, and manly-man about it, Tony had felt. Amanda, on the other hand, was beside herself. Not only had he violated virtually every plant and flower patch on the Almeida's estate, but the neighbors had begun to complain, as well. Yet no amount of threats, corner time, revocation of television privileges, or trips to the child psychologist had seemed to phase her five-year-old. It wasn't until Pop Almeida casually glanced up from the funny pages one Sunday morning and growled "Quit upsetting your communist mother or I'll kick your ass" did Tony promptly kick his addiction, cold-turkey.

The night of his and Pop's great escape had also been Tony's first introduction to the fine art of negotiating a fair, reasonable, and equitable compromise in lieu of simply giving up and running away. He had listened intently as his Dad hammered out a smooth deal over the walkie-talkie with his Mom: She could continue creating as many Brussel Sprouts masterpieces per day as she wished, his Dad had offered, in exchange for her agreement that she just not serve them as meals anymore. It hadn't been a perfect deal, by any means: the house still reeked of Brussel Sprouts even days after Amanda had aced her exam; plus, Tony and his grandfather had been grounded and deprived of television for the following two solid weeks. But it was a compromise that all three Almeida men had decided they could live with and had shaken hands on that night. And though it darned near killed Tony and Pop to subsequently miss two entire episodes of Gunsmoke, his Dad had managed to ease the pain by smuggling a number of model-building kits past Amanda, which had given Tony and Pop something to occupy their minds while Matt Dillon, Festus, and Pop's personal favorite character, Miss Kitty, somehow managed to go about life without them.

Among the kits had been the very first model that Pop had allowed Tony to assemble entirely on his own: a Skill Level One Godzilla with three heads. Up until that point in time, Tony had only been allowed to watch Pop lovingly assemble the great ships and warplanes of World War II, narrating the role each one had played, from the Royal Navy's Swordfish's pivotal participation in sinking the Bismarck, to the Chance Vought F4U-4 Corsair's assaults upon basically anything that crossed its path.

Tony would tell Michelle all about his great escape someday — maybe even later that night — but not now. He was still too inwardly aggravated over her stubborn unwillingness to simply tell him which color Zap-A-Gap to use for repairs. Women: Every last living, breathing one of them was seemingly intent upon invading every last sacred, centuries-old male hobby turf in the book. As he began to wonder why men even put up with them, he was quickly reminded when the timer on his watch suddenly sounded.

"Geeziz. C'mere... Quick, c'mere," he said excitedly, reaching for Michelle's wrist and sliding her over to him. Before she realized what was happening, she found herself engulfed in his arms and lost in a deep, soulful kiss so unexpected and sensuous that it literally took her breath away. "Happy first anniversary, baby," Tony paused to moan before hungrily consuming a second impassioned helping of her warm, silky lips.

"What anniversary?" Michelle gasped in an exhilarated daze as his mouth traveled around her cheek, warming and tingling her skin with his breath.

"Geeziz, you forgot our very first anniversary?" he whined in mock-disappointment, sighing heavily and settling his head back against the porcelain rim of the tub. "It's one entire day since we — what?" he quizzed her, guiding her on top of himself.

"You've got it down to the minute?" she giggled in shocked and delighted astonishment, still thoroughly overwhelmed by how intensely romantic and sweet his watch-setting gesture had been.

"Up until ya started puking, as close as I can calculate," he said with a shy grin, sinking a little lower beneath the water and anchoring her snuggly between his legs. "I looked at my watch that last time, when I smashed it against the night table — remember? When you were, ummm..."

His voice trailed into a soft whisper against her ear, causing Michelle's cheeks to glow and her breath to hasten as he detailed a particular moment that she wasn't likely to forget anytime soon. The mere memory sent stabbing waves of exhilaration through her, escalated by his hands slowly submerging and resurfacing as he gently slid them around her slick skin.

"I figure that was roughly three or four minutes before you, uhh… had the neighbors wondering if I was killing somebody in here," he recalled with a proud smirk, quickly closing his eyes and feeling his breath catch as her slippery body suddenly began teasingly and rhythmically rocking against him.

"You almost did," she recalled with an wicked grin, mercilessly sliding and pressing herself a little more firmly against him each time, luxuriating in the small gasps her taunting movements were drawing from his throat.

"I'm the one who's lucky to still be alive," he reminded her, opening his eyes just long enough to find her lips and devour them with an intensity rivaling the last time they had spiraled into the abyss together, shortly before Michelle had reached for her pills.

He felt her body quake in his arms and wished there were some way to sink his teeth into her skin without hurting her, just to relieve the ache he felt in his jaw from wanting to somehow consume her entirely. Small, subtle rotations of her hips exacted a series of short, strained groans from somewhere deep inside his chest. His hands trembled, sliding a little more quickly and zealously over and around her silky curves and amid her creases. He felt his breathing growing steadily more rapid and shallow from the myriad sensations assaulting his brain: thick, soapy bath water sealing her breasts tightly against his matted chest; warm lips sliding solidly across his own, accented by an occasional taste of her darting tongue; soft groans seeping into his ears again, at the same thrilling pitch and low-level volume that had burned into his memory banks and sent him reeling the night before.

A whoosh of soapy water cascaded between them as he suddenly brought them both to their feet, clutching her snuggly against himself as he leaned in to flip the drain on the tub and give each shower handle a firm twist. A few moments later, Michelle found herself pressed up hard against the wall with hands sliding and caressing her everywhere.

"Lose that thing," he panted in a low, husky voice into her ear, making the executive decision that all guidelines, protocols, and social graces governing the estrogen goddesses be damned; he'd courteously entertained them long enough as it was. Michelle was his and he was taking her back.

She wasn't sure which of them had carried out his dictate, nor did she care. Seconds after being freed of the barrier that had stood between them for what felt more like an eternity than a day, Michelle listened to herself gasp hard as his body hungrily reintroduced itself to hers, crushing her against the wall and impaling her with the force and desperation of a mariner returning home to his woman after years at sea.

Her body's snug and welcome reception sent his mind promptly careening in a dozen feverish directions at once upon greedily reclaiming what he'd gone without for way too long. He knew from the second their bodies conjoined that neither of them was destined to last very long. He could already feel her gripping and consuming him with subtle, telltale spasms, instantaneously elevating his own excitement level a thousand-fold. Her nails scratching against his skin, intermingled with the sensation of warm water raining down hard against his back, compelled him to increase his pace and force almost involuntarily. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her and how badly he had missed being with her. But her body, ravaging his on a number of fronts, succeeded in temporarily short circuiting his speech center, reducing his vocabulary to little more than clipped grunts and impassioned groans, interspersed with an occasional single-syllable commentary on the raw emotion he felt. "Geeziz" and "baby" were as about as multi-syllabic as he was capable of at the moment, repeating it over and over as assorted limbs, lips, and hands tightly clutched and clung to him.

The teaming water washed the sweat away as fast as his pores could produce it. Their bodies were already beginning to tense and tighten in synch, prepping for the feverish moment of meltdown that was fast approaching. His knees felt seconds away from buckling beneath him. Muscles flexed to keep her slick, slippery body balanced and steady; his thighs producing the power behind each thrust he delivered with animal-level force and intensity. He was out of time, he knew, tightening his hold and pressing his lips against her ear, softly panting out a warning that he was right on the edge. His mind had fractured into too many pieces to be able to judge her state or stage, but he felt her writhering hard in his arms and returning each feverish thrust with her own, suggesting that she was likely just as much of a goner at that point as he.

"Ready, baby?" he hoped in a breathless whisper at the last second he knew he had left, then gasped in surprise as she suddenly whooshed past him over the finish line, dragging him along with her in a fury of violent shudders and fitful cries. His teeth sank somewhere into her skin as they slammed and shuddered hard against each other, his ears ringing from the volume of her voice. Or maybe it was his own. He couldn't be sure. Her surprise finish had produced the familiar disorientation he was fast becoming accustomed and addicted to.

"Can we — can we celebrate _this_ anniversay... too?" she gasped with a dazed grin, clinging to him on the floor of the tub where they eventually found themselves on their knees. "Like... ten minutes from now... maybe?"

"I'll see what I can do," he chuckled between heaving breaths, feeling his soul reentering his body and wondering how it was physically possible to sweat so much under a shower of cascading water.

Minutes later his knees were still shaking as he leaned against the refrigerator door, pulling out a small bottle of juice for himself and some sort of newfangled designer spring water for her, which looked as though it had already been opened. He wondered if Michelle had been drinking it earlier, or if it belonged to Mrs. Sanchez and had been sitting there on the refrigerator shelf for the entire past week.

"Were you drinking this water in here before?" he called out in the direction of the bedroom over the whirring sound of the hair dryer.

"Huh?" Michelle called back, clicking the dryer off for a moment.

"Spring water..."

"Yeah, that sounds good," she said, snapping the dryer on again.

"No, I mean, is it yours? The bottle is open..."

"Huh?" she asked, snapping it off once again.

"Did you open the spring water?"

"I'm open to anything that's cold, honey," she assured him, clicking the whirring dryer back on.

He gave up. If it turned out to be flat or stale, he would just fetch something else at that point. He entered the bedroom and set the water on the night table beside her, then emptied the bottle of juice down his throat in one fell swig, watching in fascination as the dryer's hot gusts slowly transformed her damp, limp strands into a bouquet of thick, springy curls.

Michelle snapped the dryer off long enough to sit up, throw her hair back, and follow suit, chug-a-lugging the cold spring water down in one long, continuous swallow.

"God, you have no idea how badly I needed that," she panted for air, holding the drained bottle out to him.

"The water or The Sperminator," he boastfully smirked as the dryer began whirring again, watching her eyes roll and her head shake on its way back down between her knees.

He had meant to ask for her final decision — the vegetable omelet or the grilled cheese — but refused to go through that "Huh?" thing again, making the decision on her behalf to go with the omelet.

Trying not to look too closely at the mess in the living room as he passed through to the kitchen, Tony bristled at the memory of the party that had earlier broken out, after he had gone to the bedroom to call Olivia and request that Gerald and she swing by and pick up the criminal on their way home. He wasn't aware of Amanda's concurrent phone conversation with Miriam, who'd been dining with the girls only a few minutes away and would be happy to limo Amanda home with them. Before Tony knew it, there was a standup cocktail party going on in his living room, with Mantovani droning softly in the background, after the limo-load of women had realized that it had been ages since they'd laid eyes on his face, deciding to all go up and say hello rather than summoning Amanda downstairs. As always happened, Tony had quickly found himself playing bartender in the kitchen just to escape their annoying cheek-pinching; mixing martinis while simultaneously instructing Michelle how to make the ladies' favorite watercress and endive toast points. He knew they were all coming straight from a restaurant. But he wasn't naive enough to trust that any of them had actually eaten anything and would be damned if he was going to be stuck with five socialites sipping martinis on empty stomachs, only to end up drunkenly gabbing up a storm on his couch for the next several hours.

He'd actually been holding out hope at that point of still watching The Guns of Navarone. But those hopes had formally gone down in flames when, on top of everyone else assembled in his living room, Petey had shown up on special assignment from Sarina, who was still stuck down at the clinic and jonesing for more of Michelle's cold veggies, chicken and beef. By the time Olivia and Gerald arrived and switched from Mantovani to something considerably more raucous, the party was officially in full swing, replete with angry telephone calls from Tony's seventysomething neighbors, whom he ultimately decided to invite over just to shut them up.

But Tony's bristling quickly transformed into laughter, recalling how his Mom, after squealing with joy upon seeing Petey, had promptly ordered him out of "that deplorable vest" and into one of Tony's clean t-shirts, making Petey wash his hands and face and comb his hair, while he was at it. The spontaneous party had all been worth it, Tony now thought in retrospect, just to have seen the look on Michelle's face when Petey had entered the kitchen, his hair neatly parted on the side and Tony's t-shirt straining at the seams, not quite clearing the bottom of the giant's enormous beer gut. The visual had only gotten better when Petey then manned a martini for himself and began politely passing a tray of hors d'oeuvres among the ladies, blushing profusely as they fawned over him with congratulations, best wishes, and a thousand questions about the upcoming blessed arrival of Amanda's grandchild.

"I'm so glad ya thought to get a picture of that," Tony smiled at Michelle as she entered the kitchen in the billowy nightshirt his Mom had given him years ago, insisting that nightshirts for men were all the rage that particular season.

"Pink ones?" Tony had questioned her sanity, feeling his testosterone levels already dropping to dangerous lows as his Mom had insisted it was "peach," not "pink," as if a subtle difference in hue mattered in the male-hormonal scheme of things.

"A picture of what?" Michelle asked with an exceptionally playful grin on her face and lilt in her voice, slipping behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist as he stood rinsing a variety of vegetables at the kitchen sink.

"Of Petey, with my Mom and her friends," he reminded her with a chuckle. Michelle instantly broke into a round of melodious laughter, conjuring the mental image of 6' 3" Petey and his neatly combed hair, posing with five immaculately dressed and coifed Beverly Hills fiftysomethings, holding up their martini glasses and hitching their skirts to show a little leg for the camera.

"Do you think your Mom made it there safely?" Michelle giggled uncontrollably, visualizing the scene of Amanda on the back of Petey's bike, clinging to him with one arm wrapped around his enormous waist, the other holding the plate of Sarina's veggies, chicken and beef, roaring away from the building with Miriam's limo in hot pursuit. Tony had finally given up when Amanda insisted she be permitted to accompany Petey back to the clinic.

"It's positively killing me to think that my grandchild is about to be delivered by a woman I've yet to even lay eyes on, darling," she had argued, seconds away from turning on the waterworks, which Tony was in absolutely no mood for at that point, angrily eyeing the conga line that had snaked its way from the living room into the sanctuary of his kitchen.

"That just doesn't seem right," Miriam had sympathetically chimed in, backing Amanda right on cue as she always did. His Mom was tough enough to deal with on her own, so whenever her girlfriends would gang up on him, Tony's first reaction was always to give them whatever they wanted just to make them go away.

"Road trip!" Miriam had gleefully called out to the girls, at which point Tony had simply kept his lips sealed, desperate to regain his alone-time with Michelle and willing to do whatever it took to have his life and sanity returned to him.

Michelle continued giggling her heart out, her head bumping against Tony's back as he crossed over from the sink to the counter with Michelle still glued to his waist.

"Something's sure got you happy," he commented proudly, convinced that his earlier masterful show of sexual prowess had everything to do with her sudden bout of euphoric giddiness.

"I love... you," she cooed loudly into the back of his t-shirt.

"I love you, too, baby," he chuckled, glancing back over his shoulder, trying to make eye contact with her.

"I love you... I love you... That was all three wordsh," she pointed out, bumping her forehead against his back again. "How many more do I owe... now?"

"After that shower?... About twenty-five," he chuckled again, curious as to why she seemed to be slurring, not to mention shouting. He reached behind himself, grabbing a handful of pink nightshirt and easing her front and center.

"I love your... _hugeness_," she decided to pay him the ultimate compliment, attempting to plant her perched lips somewhere in the general vicinity of his face, though missing it by about a foot.

"Ya do, huh?" he chuckled with a curious half-frown, watching her passionately making out with his shoulder. "C'mere... Look at me," he said, tilting her head up and inspecting her happy, hazy eyes. "Did you take another one of those pills, or something?"

"What pillzsh?" she lovingly grinned up at him.

"Those pills that made ya sick this morning. Those nausea pills. Remember?"

She clearly had no idea what he was referring to. Realizing that the only thing holding her up on her feet at that juncture was his hands pressed against her cheeks, Tony wrapped an arm around her waist and leaned her back against the counter. His mind raced, trying to remember if he had seen her drinking anything at the party, then recalled the bottle of spring water she had chug-a-lugged with such gusto.

"The _pink_ Gazz-A-Zap," she said in an overly sexy voice, suddenly plunging a hand down the front of his jeans.

"Geeziz," his voice announced an octave higher than usual, gently prying her hand free of the precious anatomy she had decided to help herself to, just a tad too tightly.

"You want the pink thuff for repairs," she assured him as he slowly guided her toward the breakfast table.

"Actually, I want you to sit right here for just a minute, okay, baby?" he said with a smile and a soft tone, gently guiding her into a chair. He quickly crossed over to the counter and inhaled deeply into the open neck of the water bottle, but smelled nothing in the way of alcohol.

Hearing a firm thud, he turned to find Michelle on the floor beside the chair, curled up in a fit of laughter.

"I fell," she broke the news to him, unable to stop laughing as he gingerly lifted her back onto her feet. Her body was so limber and pliable that he highly doubted she had hurt anything, but checked her elbows, knees, and a few other critical bones just to be on the safe side, then guided her into a seated position on the floor in the corner of the kitchen.

"Stay," he gently directed her, momentarily feeling guilty for pointing his finger at her the same way he used to do with his dog, Peppy.

"Am I drunk?" she asked out of passing curiosity, clunking the back of her head against the wall and feeling no pain.

"No, but you're a little high on something, it looks like," he said with an easy smile, envisioning himself at the clinic with Michelle in one room, having her stomach pumped out, and his Mom in another, receiving treatment for strangulation marks encircling her neck. "Is there anything you're allergic to, honey?" he checked,

"Yesh... Chappelle," Michelle answered, bursting into uproarious laughter at her own joke. Tony smiled and nodded his head, searching the counter for his cell phone.

"Funny, honey," he unintentionally rhymed, impelling Michelle to double over in a full-blown seizure of riotous laughter. "I meant medication. Are you allergic to any medications that you know of, sweetie?" But Michelle was far too busy laughing her guts out to reply. Tony shook his head, chuckling on the outside and fuming on the inside as he punched a number into his cell phone.

"Yeah, hey, it's me, Dad," he said into the receiver, turning to search the refrigerator for other bottles of the designer spring water, though not really expecting to find any. But he wanted to eliminate the possibility of someone having tampered with a six-pack on a supermarket shelf and Mrs. Sanchez having inadvertently purchased it without noticing the broken seal. Just as he figured, only that one, lone bottle had been in there, suggesting the high likelihood that it had been placed on the refrigerator shelf to chill by one of his Mom's hoodlum girlfriends.

"Vergèze orange-flavored spring water. Whose M.O. is that, Dad?… Nah, I didn't, but my girlfriend did," he said in a controlled growl, glancing over his shoulder and noticing that Michelle was no longer in the corner. "Hang on, Dad. Hang on a second," he said, finding her on all fours in the living room, crawling her way toward the hallway. "No, honey, back this way... This way, baby. I don't want ya roaming around where I can't see ya, okay?" he gently requested, steering her around in the opposite direction and following her as she crawled back to the kitchen corner. He paused for a moment to fish one of Mrs. Sanchez's giant-sized Chocolate Spanish Peanut cookies from a jar on the counter, then stooped down and handed it to Michelle, hoping to not only keep her occupied while he spoke with his Dad, but to get something into her empty stomach, thinking it might help neutralize the affect of whatever barbiturate had obviously been added to the spring water.

"Dad... Yeah... Nah, it wasn't a mickey. Not an alcohol one, anyway. So, who — Huh?... I thought her husband put her in a program... You're right. Four months ago, which means she's probably been back on the stuff for at least three months, now. Geeziz. So ya think that's probably all it was? I mean, I don't wanna put Michelle through some whole stomach-pumping nightmare unless it's absolutely —Yeah, Michelle. You're gonna love her, Dad... Yeah, I'd say so… Nah, I just don't want her to go through all that unless it absolutely necessary... Nah, I remember guys taking that stuff recreationally at college all the time… Yeah, I think I'll just keep my eye on her for awhile. I can always take her down if she starts showing signs of — Hmm?… Yeah, would ya mind? At least that way I'll know for sure what I'm dealing with here… They're probably all still down at the clinic with Petey. Hang on a sec. I'm looking for the number," he said, flipping through the address book on the counter and peering over his shoulder to be sure Michelle wasn't choking on the cookie or passed out on the floor.

"Uh-huh... Yeah... Nah, it's better if you call her... 'Cause I'm about five minutes away from going down there and murdering her, Dad," Tony calmly and matter-of-factly explained. "Uh-huh… Nah, you don't know what I've been through tonight. Suffice it to say that I would've been well within my rights to have her arrested earlier... Uh-huh... Nah, it can wait 'til ya get home. It's too long a story. I take it ya noticed that your plane is missing, right?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Michelle again. She was fine, beaming up happily at him, inadvertently smacking the back of her head on the wall one more time, though seeming not to notice, or at least not to care. The cookie was in various-sized pieces, strewn across her lap and the floor, but she seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

"Ish zchat Chappelle?" she inquired brightly, a chocolate chip tumbling out of her stuffed cheek and down the neck of her pink or peach nightshirt.

"Nah, baby," Tony covered the mouthpiece and smiled warmly down at her, fishing another cookie out of the jar and placing it in her lap amid all the other chunks and crumbs before returning to the conversation with his Dad.

Amanda Almeida was in so much trouble, she had no idea, he thought to himself, thanking the testosterone overlords that the head of the Almeida household was through with his meetings and merely waiting on his pilot's arrival at this point. With a little luck and a decent tailwind, Jim Almeida's wheels would touch down before Tony eventually got Michelle into bed and, once certain she was peacefully passed out for the night, himself down to the clinic for a long-overdue, psycho mad-dog, up-close-and-personal scream-out with Amanda Almeida, who'd successfully managed to finally push him just a little too far this time.


	14. The Almeidiator

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 14: The Almeidiator_

"OVER _theeerrrrre..._" Michelle sang out loudly in the key of R from her corner in the kitchen, saving Tony the trouble of articulating the primary item on his mental list of grievances; opting, instead, to silently stare at his Dad, in a blind fury, and allow Michelle's condition do the talking for him.

"You're doing a perfectly smashing job, darling," Amanda supportively chirped in her future grandchild-manufacturer's direction, immediately regretting her poor choice of words as Michelle proceeded to break yet another 50-caliber machine gun from the World War II P-47D Thunderbolt fighter model kit sitting in her lap.

"THANK _yoooooooooooooooouuu,_" she sing-sang at the top of her lungs, always responding whenever spoken to, Tony had been noticing, but in a robotic, automated sort of way. It was as though she were wholly oblivious to his parents' presence and merely responding with the routine courteousness programmed into her by her upbringing.

As Michelle belted out another stanza of the popular World War I song — only two words of which she appeared to know— Tony noticed his Dad subtly lower his head and stare into his scotch, lips pinched as if efforting to suppress an inopportune grin. Though traditionally the epitome of self-discipline and control, Jim Almeida couldn't help himself. He fully realized the gravity of the situation and was just as outraged as his son over the events that had led to Michelle's present state of temporary insanity. But not even Jim Almeida's legendary poker face could remain intact at the sight of the enchanting, curly headed, porcelain-faced woman who was having the time of her life singing a World War I song to a World War II model kit, corralled in the corner of his son's kitchen like a new puppy that wasn't quite fully housebroken yet.

"Sorry, son," Jim apologized in his signature low, steady, relaxed voice to his visibly discomposed son. "It's just that she's, ahh... She just seems so, uhh… "

"Contented?" Amanda cautiously offered in a small, timid voice, gazing toward the kitchen entryway where her beloved husband and infuriated son stood side-by-side with their backs to her.

"Stoned outta her face, y'mean, don't ya, Ma?" Tony turned and rabidly frothed in the direction of the couch where his mother sat, trying her best to look innocent. "This isn't working, Dad!" he swung back toward his father and vehemently objected. "She's talking! You said she wouldn't talk!" he fumed, face muscles twitching as his eyes rocketed back to the criminal, took aim, and fired off another shock-and-awe barrage of icy daggers.

"Sweetheart, please," Jim Almeida turned and patiently implored his wife, arching an eyebrow to gently remind her of the bargain he had struck with their son after she'd initially been denied entry into his apartment. Jim kept his eyes solidly fixed on Amanda for a moment longer until she had exhaled a dramatic sigh of defeat and obligingly, though begrudgingly, re-crossed her arms and legs and returned to brooding in silence.

Amanda Almeida was getting it from all directions. Not only was her son absolutely livid but her normally unflappable husband, though concealing it well on the outside, was inwardly furious with her for having ridden on the back of Peter's motorcycle again — and without a helmet, to make matters worse. Thanks to Miriam and her big mouth, who'd spilled the beans to Jim down at the clinic earlier, Amanda could still hear the earful of statistical data he'd factually cited on the drive over, replete with the percentage of passengers hurled into early graves at the same rate of velocity as cycle operators themselves. Amanda was fully aware of the dangers, of course, but until someone developed a helmet that didn't completely flatten and annihilate one's coif, she would just have to continue double-spraying and taking her chances on the open road.

Tony stewed in frustration. He was always glad whenever his Dad decided to pay him an unannounced visit, but wished he hadn't seen fit to bring his Mom along with the intention of hashing out the problem and mediating a peaceable resolution. Tony yearned for a one-on-one, man-to-man conversation where he could speak freely and frankly about his Mom's interference in his life. No matter how inadvertent, unintentional, or even well-intentioned her actions were, Tony's relationship with Michelle was too important to risk having it compromised by his Mom, and he needed his Dad to throw a leash on her, as only he was capable. Jim Almeida, who ruled with a velvet fist both corporately and domestically, was one of those rare men who could achieve a desired result with little more than an arched eyebrow and a stern look. Rarely did he raise his voice because he somehow never had to. Though quiet, mild-mannered, and even-tempered in demeanor, he radiated a forcefulness that reeked of authority; his pores oozed strength and intestinal fortitude; and his eyes, which always transmitted warmth, kindness, and tenderness at first glance, contained a message — a word to the wise — at second glance. It was a missive that conveyed different things to different people in different ways, but it was clearly a note of caution. Like signs that said "Beware of the Dog" and "Warning: Harzardous Materials." Only Jim Almeida's eyes said things more along the lines of "Beware of being fired if you ever do something fiscally suicidal like that again," and "Warning: Failing English Lit a second time can and will be hazardous to your health." His missive to Amanda said "Caution: I own scissors and know how to use them on your credit cards," which is all it ever took to get her back on the straight and narrow.

Glancing down at Michelle, Tony shuddered at the thought of how easily a disastrous outcome could've resulted if his Mom's druggie girlfriend's tolerance level had been just a little higher and Michelle's a little lower. But at least he wasn't quite as worried as he had been before his Dad roused Max, the Almeidas' family physician, out of bed for a house call "just to be on the safe side." Max had checked Michelle's vitals and assured Tony that although she appeared to have chug-a-lugged what must have been a goodly dosage of the barbiturate sedative that had been added to the spring water, she was in no real danger; rather, in layman's terms, Michelle was high as a kite and would eventually fall into a nice, sound sleep; then awaken in the morning feeling a little on the groggy side. Upon Max's departure, Tony's worry had promptly transformed itself into pure, unadulterated, fire-breathing fury.

"How 'bout we all calm down for a few minutes," Jim Almeida requested in a soothing, sedate tone, delivering a few firm pats against his son's back. "Trust me that your mother feels just as badly about this as anyone."

Her husband couldn't be more correct: Amanda indeed felt perfectly awful and wholly responsible for the condition her future daughter-in-law was in. She'd had no idea that her girlfriend Joyce was back on "the stuff" again. Had she even the slightest inkling that Joyce was traveling around with them, craftily sipping from a bottle of barbiturate-spiked spring water to maintain her "high" throughout the day, Amanda would have promptly dropped her from their coterie like a hot sour-cream-and-endive-stuffed pomme de terre.

But now was not the time to try to convince her son of that. Now was the time to sit quietly and allow her husband to get her out of this perfectly horrible mess, as he always did. Jim Almeida, fortuitously, had always had a uniquely calmative effect on their son and more influence over him than anybody else had ever even come close to: including Pop. Despite the fact that Tony had grown up spending considerably more time in his grandfather's company, he had always clearly recognized his Dad as his ultimate authority figure, role model, and last word. Amanda nevertheless used to worry about Pop's influence over her young, impressionable child, particularly during those early, critical formative years and specifically regarding how much of Pop's more notorious, less desirable attitudes, biases, and "blue language" might be rubbing off on him. A memory sprang to mind of a particular evening when Tony was only barely three years old, and Amanda had been at her wit's end from trying to cajole, threaten, plead, bargain, and bribe him out of the bathtub. She had tried simply everything, from pointing out the wrinkles on his fingertips, to threatening to deny him of his Play-Doh for a week, to trying to lure him out with a Twinkie: all to no avail.

Like clockwork, Pop had come storming out of his room and up the hallway, hollering, "Geeziz H. Christmas! Get the hell outta that tub before my head explodes from any more of this bleeding-heart liberal negotiating!"

Before Amanda could blink, Tony had rocketed from the tub and into the towel she had been waving at him, like a bullfighter, for the past ten solid minutes, amazing her yet again by how obediently he'd respond to his grandfather's requests as opposed to her own.

"Ya don't negotiate with a three-year-old, for cryssake, Ruskie! Ya kick his ass!" Pop had gone on to bellow, always only too happy to share his child-rearing techniques, the likes of which would've sent Dr. Spock spiraling into a dead faint, Amanda had always been convinced.

"I don't believe in beating toddlers, darling," she had politely responded.

"Nobody's talking about taking a baseball bat to the kid, for cryssake, Ruskie!" her father-in-law had roared back, shaking his head in utter dismay at his political opponent's peace-love-and-Kumbaya belief that reasoning with an unreasonable child would somehow yield a desired result. "Ya gotta whack him one every now and again. That's all! Show him who's boss, for godssake. The way you're always negotiating with the kid, like he's your business partner, you're gonna end up raising a fag if you're not careful!... Worse, a liberal fag!" as if there were any other variety in Pop's book.

"I highly doubt homosexuality will ever be directly linked to holding perfectly reasonable discussions with one's mother at an early age," Amanda had assured him, struggling to get her impatient son into his Dr. Dentons as he gallantly fought to free himself, anxious to get on with the more important business of playing with his grandfather.

"Y'wanna know how many fag serial killers grew up having 'reasonable conversations' with their mothers? Huh, Ruskie?" Pop had challenged her statistical knowledge, fully prepared to concoct the percentages right there on the spot, as he always did, but electing to simply throw his hands up this time and storm back down the hall to his room, muttering all the way.

"Hold still for Mommy, darling," Amanda had gone on to implore her frustrated three-year-old, holding him gently by the wrist while she labored to get a comb through his freshly washed tangle of thick curls. "No, no, darling, put the Twinkie down. That was only if you had gotten out of the tub when Mommy had asked... Darling? No... No... What did Mommy just say... Take the Twinkie out of your mouth, darling..."

"For the love o' mercy, give the kid the damned Twinkie!" Pop's voice had promptly thundered up the hallway. "If Balonie was sportin' an Afro and living in the ghetto, you'd be crawling across cut glass to serve it to him on a silver platter — and stuffing his pockets full of the cash ya libbie-socialists pilfer outta my pension check every damned month!"

"Language, daaaaaarling!" Amanda had pleasantly sung out as a gentle reminder that young, innocent ears were listening.

Later, Amanda had cited and counterpointed each of Pop's epithets and socially biased statements as she'd put her son to bed, repeating her spiel all over again while dressing him in the morning, just to assure herself that the message was getting through: that he wasn't to use a disparagement, like "fag," to describe a homosexual; nor was it fair to accuse someone of communist tendencies and treasonous activities simply because of differing political views and party loyalties.

It was a tedious and time-consuming task, and all Amanda could do to hold her three-year-old's attention. But she had nonetheless persevered over the years, beginning when Tony was only two and, out of frustration, had called her a "pinko" after she had forbidden him to scuba dive in his kiddie pool in the midst of a lightening storm.

Gazing down at Michelle in the corner, Tony's eyes winced in pain as she switched over — for God only knew what reason — to the theme song from Gilligan's Island, slurring out the lyrics at top volume as though she were afflicted with a hearing disability and unable to judge or control the decibel level of her own voice.

Dropping his chin to his chest and clawing his brow, Tony's mind raced back to their arrival at the restaurant earlier that day, when Michelle had been so concerned about making a good first-impression with his parents, one or possibly both of whom she had assumed was slated to be her "surprise." A pang hit him in the heart as he thought of how eager he, himself, had been for his Dad to meet Michelle, confident of how instantly impressed he would be, not only by her beauty, but by how exceptionally sharp and bright she was.

"... a THREE HOUR _toooooouuuurrrrr,_" Michelle jauntily belted out for the fourth or fifth time over and above what the lyrics called for, conspicuously fighting to stay awake to enjoy her "high" as long as possible, and obviously incognizant of the damage she was doing while freeing the model pieces from the plastic webbing they came attached to.

"Ya sure don't see a head full of curls like that everyday, I'll tell ya," Jim Almeida genially remarked with the savoir-faire of an accomplished host, his expertise in idle chit-chat spanning the course of nearly forty years.

"I can't wait for you to meet her, Dad" Tony proudly gushed. "I mean, for real... when she's... y'know…"

"Herself again," Jim Almeida diplomatically filled in the blank.

"She's so smart, too, Dad. You're not gonna believe how smart she is," Tony assured him.

"Well, I'd say she'd have to be a great deal smarter than smart to be entrusted with so much responsibility in an agency so vital as counter-terrorism," his Dad affably conjectured.

"COOK_iiiieeeeeee_," Michelle hollered out like a mental patient, thoroughly engrossed in trying to squeeze glue from the cap of a Bic pen and wondering why she couldn't get even so much as a drop to come out.

Only too eager for the opportunity to get more food into Michelle's stomach, Tony shattered another of Mrs. Sanchez's cookies to smithereens inside the lid of box to save Michelle the time and trouble, then grinned into her hazy, glassy, half-mast eyes and cooed some sweet words about how quickly she was detaching the pieces.

"_Noooooooooooo_ _nippers,_" Michelle proudly pointed out, though this time in a deep, low voice that vaguely resembled a foghorn, which she had decided to switch to for reasons Tony didn't even want to know.

"And to think I ever doubted your abilities," he smiled warmly, followed by a silent prayer to God, the testosterone overlords, Pop, and anybody else within celestial listening distance, that Michelle be mercifully allowed to awaken in the morning with the mother of all blackouts.

"Ya sure don't see a face like that on the street everyday, either, I'll tell ya," Jim Almeida pushed ever-amiably onward. "'The face of a china doll'... That's what they used to call skin like that, back in my day," he added, determined to keep the atmosphere as light and genial as possible in anticipation of the inevitably messy conversation that lie ahead.

"The professor and Mary Ann, darling!" Amanda helpfully called out after Michelle had inserted a doctor, lawyer, and Indian chief onto the island and appeared to be stumped on the lyrics that followed.

"She's talking again, Dad! I told ya she wouldn't honor the agreement!" Tony fumed, instantly snapping back into anger mode at the mere sound of his mother's voice, as if someone had thrown an "on" switch.

"How about if I breathe? Is breathing in accordance with the agreement?" Amanda scowled under her breath, irritated that her husband was making her do penance by denying her a martini, leaving her with absolutely nothing to do with her hands.

Jim Almeida cocked his head and raised an eyebrow to his wife again, wondering if he shouldn't have gone with his first instincts, after all, and shown up on his son's doorstep alone. He knew there wasn't a woman on Earth who could possibly be more loving or devoted to her offspring than Amanda Almeida. But he had always known, from the very start, that she and their son were predestined for a lifetime of explosive run-ins, simply given their keenly different personalities and dispositions, not to mention their opposite genders.

While Amanda was the epitome of daintiness, femininity, and all things pink, she had managed to give birth to her polar opposite: a natural-born, dyed-in-the-wool rough-houser with an insatiable appetite for anything male-oriented, dirt-based, and testosterone-driven. If Tony had had his own way growing up, he would never have taken his first bath until he had reached dating age, Jim Almeida thought to himself. His room would've been a veritable menagerie of ant farms, worms, snakes, lightening bugs, and pet rodents. Never would he have felt a need or desire to comb his hair, put his toys away, hang up an article of clothing, kiss or speak to a female relative, or expand his tastes beyond his childhood staples, with the exception of a full box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese when he felt like going gourmet.

He would've lived on his stomach in the dirt, waging a new bloody battle with his plastic army men everyday. His tree house would look like a palace; his room, like a cyclone had hit it; and the world would've been his personal urinal. Undeniably and simply put, Jim Almeida's son was all-boy, born to a mother as girl as it got, and with whom he stood as much of a chance coexisting harmoniously as Al Capone would with Martha Stewart.

"I love your _huuuuugeness,_" Michelle decided to bellow out, not quite certain if she had remembered to mention it before.

Jim Almeida looked down into his scotch again and chuckled softly, almost proudly, while Amanda dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

"Isn't that sweet, darling? She loves his cuteness," she tried chirping to her husband, in the world's lamest, most dismally failed attempt to pretend she had misheard Michelle.

Tony clawed his forehead for a mortifying moment. As a fresh surge of anger washed over him, his brain warp-sped back to the very first time his Mom had driven him to an apex of fury like this, after she had accidentally killed his beloved pet hamster, Laura, in an ill-fated attempt to operate a vacuum cleaner. Devastated, Tony had moved into his tree house and refused to come down for two entire days and nights. Even Pop had been unsuccessful in persuading the inconsolable six-year-old to climb back down and rejoin society.

Not knowing what else to do, and emotionally traumatized herself, Amanda had finally placed a tearful call to her husband in Germany, compelling him to cut his business meeting short by a few days. By the time Jim had touched down at LAX, Pop had already exhausted every surefire tactic in his arsenal and was down to rhyming his invectives in a last-ditch effort to lift his distraught grandson's spirits.

"Your commie mommy didn't mean it, Balonie! It was a clear–cut case of accidental homicide!" Pop had called up to him from the base of the tree, swearing on his John Birch Society membership card that his Mom had only been trying to spare their housekeeper, Rosa, from an overload of work once she'd returned from her two-week vacation; that the Leninist-feminist was just trying to clean the bottom of the cage to enhance the comfort and beauty of Laura's living environment; that the well-intentioned nuttsie-ruskie had no way of knowing about the Electrolux's revolutionary new and improved dual-action suction technology, given the commercial-free commie public broadcasting channel she was always watching and calling donations into.

"You know those libbie-socialists when they're on a mission to 'help' somebody. They always find a way to bollix it up... Just look at the Welfare system, if ya don't believe me!" Pop had all but begged him. "They're like a bunch of vicious Saint Bernards, those ruskies are — like some kinda socialist Boy Scout troop from hell! And it's not like they can even help themselves, Balonie! They were just born that way!"

But Tony had been too consumed with grief and fury to even respond, preferring to hunker down and wait it out in solitude until his Dad eventually returned from his business trip, whenever in the world that might to be. He knew that his father was the only one who could understand his pain, since he was the only person alive who knew that Tony had named his beloved hamster after Laura Ingels, the girl on "Little House on the Prairie," with whom he was secretly and deeply in love. Tony hadn't told anyone; not even Pop. His Dad had simply guessed it one night while putting Tony to bed after the show had ended, explaining that he had been able to read it on his face.

Tony's first reaction had been one of stark fear, thinking his Dad would tell his Mom and that word would invariably sweep through the neighborhood; that his classmates would mercilessly tease him, just as they did his classmate, Michael Richter, who'd made the sorry mistake of outing his feelings for Mary Tyler Moore.

But much to Tony's great relief, his Dad had said that matters of the heart were personal and sacred, and that his secret would be safe with him and just between the two of them. When he and his Dad had then proceeded to talk a little about girls in general, Tony had been amazed by the amount of knowledge and insight his father appeared to have on the subject. The way he had articulated the kind of feelings a guy can get for a girl, it was as though his father possessed the power to not only read his face, but his mind as well.

Sitting alone in his tree house, with nothing but tearful memories and a box of Fig Newtons he'd grabbed from the pantry on his way out the door, Tony took heart in knowing that his Dad would instantly recognize the inherent perverseness of Laura Ingel's namesake having been mowed down in the prime of her life by, of all people, his own Mom — who'd never really liked Laura, Tony couldn't help but ponder. Whenever he would hold his beloved pet out for his Mom to see, she would always have nice, sweet, complimentary things to say, but only from across the room, or with her back pinned up against the wall and a wild look in her eye; like she really didn't care for Laura at all and was only pretending to, for reasons Tony could never quite figure.

Perhaps she was jealous of Laura for consuming so much of his time — time that his Mom wished she could be spending with him, instead. Perhaps she had hatched a plan to do away with Laura, so she could have him all to herself again, like Tony had seen many a murderess do in the black-and-white movies Pop liked to watch. Tony couldn't be sure, but neither could he simply dismiss the possibility. The murderess was always the last woman anyone in Pop's black-and-whites would ever suspect capable of such an act. But love makes dames do crazy things sometimes, as whichever-detective-who'd-solved-whatever-murder-case would always say at the end of the movie before hitching up the collar of his trench coat, lighting a Lucky Strike, and heading out into the dark and lonely rainy night.

The haunting possibility that his own Mom could be one of those dames had crept into Tony's mind for the umpteenth time when, out of nowhere, he'd detected the unmistakable aroma of his Dad's Old Spice cologne wafting up through the floorboards. Sticking his head out the tree house door to be sure it wasn't just wishful thinking on his part, Tony saw that his father was, indeed, on his way up to join him, not even having bothered to change out of his business suit before scaling the tree.

"Please, sweetheart, go back in the house and try to stop crying," his Dad had called down to his Mom in the yard below before crawling through the tree house door, military style, on the elbows of his $5,000 Bijan suit.

Tony hadn't realized just how badly he'd truly felt until his father was on his knees and extending his arms to him. Tony's flying leap into the warmth and safety of his Dad's Old Spice-saturated bear hug had perfectly coincided with an overwhelming flash-flood of heartsick tears and debilitating, gulping sobs. He was a wreck, but found instant solace, as he always did, swallowed up in his Dad's thick, muscular embrace.

He remained inside the safe bear-hug haven trying to collect himself while his Dad spent a few quiet minutes extending his heartfelt condolences for his loss. In a gentle voice, he had assured Tony that Laura was in a spectacular place now, with a thousand celestial hamster wheels to play on whenever she wished, and as far as the eye could possibly see. His grandmother Almeida would be only too happy to look after her, too.

"You never knew your Grandmother Nalda, but she was one of the great hamster-lovers of her time," his Dad had guaranteed him.

Tony had listened intently to everything his Dad said, drying his face on his tie and nodding his head in understanding and acceptance. After his sniffling had finally subsided, he had hesitated at first to pose the haunting possibility that Laura's accident may not have been such an accident after all, but his father had eventually convinced him to spill his guts.

"C'mon, chief, you can't really believe that," his Dad had responded in a gentle, reassuring tone. "You know your mother could never even hurt a fly."

"But love makes dames do crazy things sometimes," Tony had quoted the black-and-white detectives word for word with a quavering voice and eyes cast downward, nervously fiddling with the thick gold watch on his father's wrist. "One of them even fooled Charlie Chan, and she was pretty like Mommy, and good," he had elaborated, another round of tears threatening to fall as he recounted how shocked even Charlie Chan's Number One Son had been — not to mention Pop and himself — after the femme fatale had been exposed.

"Ah, that kind of thing only happens in the movies," his father assured him with a confident scoff. "Besides, you know your Mom better than that... You've seen how she makes me scoop spiders up and put them outside, so they can find their families again, instead of just stomping on them, right? And your Mom hates spiders, doesn't she?"

His Dad had made a good point, Tony thought as he'd nodded in agreement. What with the shock of Laura's death throwing him into such emotional upheaval, he hadn't even thought to consider his Mom's well-documented spider-relocation record.

"If I know one thing about your mother, it's that she would rather die herself than ever do anything that would hurt you..." his Dad had rested his case, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a twin-pack of Twinkies with a thick, blue satin ribbon that his Mom had tied around it. "Pop says she's been crying her eyes out for two whole days now... She feels just horrible about what happened to Laura..."

"I LOVE YOUR _huuuuuuge—_"

Tony felt his brain suddenly being sucked back through the time warp at a harrowing speed.

"Yes, honey, yes... thank... thank you," he sputtered, cutting Michelle off in a panicky sweat and feeding a larger cookie chunk into her mouth this time, hoping to stifle any other compliments she might've been planning to pay him.

"Her feet look a little cold, if you ask me," Amanda reticently pointed out.

"Nobody asked ya, Ma," Tony growled under his breath.

"Perhaps a pair of those nice thick, white socks you like to play basketball in, hmmm?" she suggested. "Shall I just grab them from your drawer, darling?"

"You just stay put, Ma," Tony snarled a little louder this time, watching his mother dare to rise up from her makeshift prison.

"Yell at me as much as you wish," Amanda firmly snapped, unable to contain her maternal concerns a second longer, "but you shouldn't have her parked on a cold floor like that! Check the floor, darling," she pleaded with her husband.

"Unless the apartment below is an igloo, which I highly doubt, the floor is just fine, sweetheart," Jim Almeida calmly assured her, freshening his glass with the vintage McCallans single-malt scotch he'd brought from the plane.

"One step, and I'll put you right out that door, Ma!" Tony threatened, watching his Mom's eyes locking onto their target. As she began to charge, Tony swooped in with the agility of a panther and whisked Michelle into his arms, sending the box of model pieces shooting across the kitchen floor in the process.

"She'll have frostbite by the time you even think to put a pair of socks on the poor thing! At least let her sit on the couch with me, where it's warm!" Amanda angrily gnarred.

"She falls _off_ the couch because of you!" Tony informed her at the top of his lungs. "Why do ya think I have her on the floor in the first place!"

As he drained the last sip of the velvety 1926 single-malt from his glass and watched his eight-year-old son and nine-year-old wife war with each other, Jim Almeida thought back to his days in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta, conducting black-ops psychological warfare missions as a Beach Jumper with the Navy's Amphibious Ready-Group forces. He wished he had known Amanda Almeida back then. He could've eliminated so many more Vietcong simply by telling Amanda that a cold front was moving in, then air-dropping her behind enemy lines with enough pairs of nice, thick white socks for everyone and letting her rip their throats out after they invariably refused to put them on.

"You... sit back down," Jim directed his wife, aiming a finger at the couch as he wove his way through the slew of airplane parts and cookie chunks around his feet. "You... clean this up before somebody slips and breaks their neck," he instructed his son, nodding down at the kitchen floor.

Eyes still icily glued to his mother, Tony transferred custody of Michelle to his Dad, then sank to his knees and snatched the empty box lid from the floor, suddenly feeling a newfound appreciation for federal premeditated homicide laws.

Jim Almeida patiently waited until both rabid warriors were in their respective spots before moving to the table and nudging a chair away with his foot. As he settled in, with Michelle slumped and splayed like a rag doll in his arms, he felt a pang tug at his heart as her head clunked hard against his shoulder and made a home for itself against the side of his neck.

"I loooooove your..."

Tony's breathing stopped as Michelle geared up to compliment his father this time.

"..._Old Spiiiiiicccce_," she said with a woozy yawn.

"Why, thank you, there, little lady," Jim Almeida chuckled warmly as Tony safely exhaled. "Brains, beauty, and a nose for fine cologne," he winked at his son, who'd been razzing him for decades about his drugstore-purchased aftershave, with the safety warning on the back that read: "Flammable. Do not apply near flame or while smoking."

"This one's putting up some fight trying to stay awake... aren't ya, huh?" his Dad smiled at Michelle. "Don't be getting too fond of that stuff, or we'll be signing you into the Betty Ford Clinic with the rest of Mrs. Almeida's girlfriends, won't we?"

All heads suddenly and simultaneously turned at the unexpected sound of the doorbell. Jim Almeida threw his son a curious frown, angling his watch to indicate how late it was: well after midnight.

"Shall I see who it is? Or would you like to get the gun first," Amanda sarcastically bleated, already on her feet and halfway to the door.

"If it's any of your criminal girlfriends, don't you dare let..."

"Darling!" Amanda sang out in pleasant surprise, swinging the door wide open.

"Hi, Mommy," Olivia chirped, breezing on air into the living room.

"I thought you and Gerald agreed to keep Petey company down at the clinic," Tony looked up in surprise.

"We were, but then the doctor came out and told him that Sarina's carrying twins, and he..."

"Twins?" Amanda gasped, reeling back on her heels, not quite sure that she had heard right.

"...and he passed out and hit..."

"Twins?" Amanda gasped again in disbelief, clutching her pearls and stumbling back another step.

"Yeah, Mom..."

"Passed out and hit what?" Tony asked.

"His head. How's Michelle doing?... Hi, Daddy..."

"Is Peter all right?" Amanda gasped, this time in horror.

"Hi, baby girl," Jim Almeida warmly replied.

"Is Peter all right?" Amanda repeated in horror, fearing the worst.

"Sure, Mom. It was just his head," Olivia answered before turning her attention to her brother down on the kitchen floor. "Pete was in the middle of calling her about the twins when he fainted," she explained, pointing a thumb at their shell-shocked mother, "so I figured I'd save ya the trouble of calling and telling me to come over and get her."

"Darling?" Amanda spun in her husband's direction, wild-eyed, as she hurriedly scrambled for her purse.

"Go," Jim Almeida said, knowing clear-well that between Pete's clunk on the head and the news of Amanda's grandtwins, there wasn't a man or godly force that could keep his wife away from the clinic.

"Bye, Daddy..."

"Bye, baby. Remember to swing back and pick your old man up on the way home, y'hear?"

"I will, Daddy... Bye, Bruce," Olivia giggled, waving to her Saint Bernard down on all fours in the kitchen and swinging the door closed before he could respond.

"Well, there's a pleasant surprise," Jim Almeida remarked, loosening his tie now that his wife was gone.

"Yeah, Pop must've heard my prayers," Tony sighed in relief, gazing at the empty couch and wallowing in the sounds of silence

"A pleasant surprise, meaning your sister," his Dad clarified with both a grin and frown. "Since when are you two on speaking terms again?"

"Things have been getting better," Tony cryptically reported, laying the box lid of model pieces on the table and relieving his Dad of Michelle.

"I wish the same could be said about you and your mother," his Dad said with a compassionate grin, sifting through the box and conducting a quick damage assessment. He then got up and rummaged through the kitchen drawers, locating the small tube of model adhesive that Tony had hidden from Michelle. "Out of curiosity... did ya know that you revert to about the age of eight when you and your mother go toe-to-toe?" he asked.

"That old, huh... It always feels more like five to me... Six, maybe, when I'm making an effort to conduct myself maturely," Tony self-deprecatingly acknowledged his father's point. "I'll tell ya, Dad, I don't know how ya do it sometimes. I mean it. Where in the world do ya get your patience..."

His Dad chuckled, mostly to himself, as if harboring some secret formula for marital success that he really should be sharing for the good of all malekind.

"I'm serious, Dad. All the outrageous stunts she pulls, and I can't remember you ever raising your voice to her. Not even once."

His Dad smiled and reflected for a moment while surgically aligning the two cracked pieces of the P-47D's dorsal fin with the same saintly display of patience Tony had just alluded to.

"Well, I guess it's got a lot to do with all the little thankless things she does day after day. The stuff that goes by unnoticed," Jim Almeida said with a fond smile, his eyes squinting throughout the delicate mending procedure. "I've always personally noticed those things," he expounded, "and I guess when ya look at them all together, they just always tend to outweigh that one occasional egregious stunt she pulls every now and again."

Jim paused briefly to steal a glance at his frowning son, who didn't seem sold on either the explanation or the concept.

"Y'know, there's a lot more to your mother than that flighty, Bel Air-socialite veneer you tend to focus in on," he continued. "You should try delving beneath the surface a little more often, chief. Ya might find somebody under there you've never even met before."

"I don't focus only on the lunacy, Dad. I see the good stuff, too," Tony assured him. "I think ya just see me angry with her so often 'cause she creates more grief for me than anybody else in her life."

"Oh, I don't know if you can really say that until you've walked a couple of decades in my shoes," Jim Almeida said with a hearty chuckle. "Y'know how many important clients that woman's lost for me over the years?"

"I wouldn't even wanna guess."

"More than a few... More than a few," Jim Almeida fondly flash-assessed, moving on to study a fracture in the Thunderbolt's bubble top. "Remind me to tell ya someday about the pork-stuffed wontons she served the Israeli Defense Ministry's number-two man when I was pitching a subcontract a few years back. Your dear mother cost me $204 million that evening," he grinned.

"See, Dad? That's what I mean. How can you laugh about something like that? I'd have been screaming. They would've had to lock me up."

"Oh, I wasn't laughing that night, believe me, chief — but I wasn't screaming either," his Dad enlightened him, "because two-hundred million? That's nowhere near as much as she's helped bring into the company over the years, hosting and charming countless other clients into the fold. So it wouldn't be very fair of me if all I ever focused on were the ones she's lost for me, now, would it?"

"Nah, I guess not... when ya put it that way."

"It's a good way to look at things, son — in prospective. Ya might wanna try it the next time. Put your anger on hold. Ask her something about herself. You can always blow up at her a little later, if you still feel the need."

"I hear what you're saying, Dad, but really... I really don't focus exclusively on the bad stuff. Like, awhile ago, I was thinking about the time she killed my hamster — remember? And that blue ribbon she wrapped around the Twinkies?"

Jim Almeida smiled fondly, recalling the incident well. Cutting his meeting in Germany short to get his son out of the tree house had cost him a great deal more than $204 million; not that he had any intention of ever letting him know it.

"See? I remember the nice stuff. I even distinctly remember recognizing at the time that she used a blue ribbon 'cause she knew it was my favorite color," Tony said, resting his case.

"Well, now that ya mention it, that event is a perfect example of the point I'm making, " his Dad said. " I remember your mother doing a bit more than tying a ribbon around a pack of Twinkies back then."

Tony felt ashamed that he'd actually had to think for a second before recalling the funeral arrangements his Mom had made for Laura. It was the gesture, in fact, that had warmed his six-year-old soul and ultimately compelled him to forgive her, right there at the gravesite. At least half the Almeida clan had dutifully turned out in full and proper attire, not by his Mom's invitation, but her insistence. Tony hadn't come to learn the fine details, or fully appreciate all that his Mom had gone through to organize it so quickly, until he was in his teens and had asked his Dad about it.

It had been a funeral just as fine as any human Almeida had ever received, with a wake in the living room prior to the backyard burial, and a tasteful reception following, replete with a string quartet playing soft, reverent music throughout; including a dirge-like rewrite of the "Little House on the Prairie" theme music, which his Dad had requested, explaining to his Mom that it was simply a tune he had noticed Tony humming a lot.

He remembered his Dad dressing him that afternoon and explaining that they had to wear their dark suits because it was a symbol of mourning. Pop, however, had defied tradition and worn his VFW uniform, just in case he was somehow able to change his daughter-in-law's mind about the three-gun salute he'd volunteered to organize and participate in.

As the grieving widower of sorts, whom Laura had left behind, Tony had been the center of attention the entire day, sitting on a wing-backed chair and somberly receiving the guests, each offering him words of consolation before moving forward to file past the open casket situated on a pedestal a few feet away. The casket had consisted of the fine cherry wood box that held his father's cufflinks, spare change, and other small items, but which his Dad had said he'd be honored to have serve as Laura's final resting place.

Tony remembered how badly he had felt for his Uncle Emmanuel that afternoon, who'd stood before Laura's casket with his head bowed low and his shoulders heaving hard, up and down, obviously driven to wrenching tears by the sheer sadness of it all. It was years later that he came to learn that Uncle Emmanuel had actually been laughing uncontrollably and had consequently found himself in the doghouse with Aunt Beth for having committed the egregious crime of disgracing the family. Uncle Emmanuel had also gotten himself into big trouble with his Mom later, when he'd burst out laughing while she was recounting the gruesome details of the vacuuming accident. It had been weeks before his Mom had come to forgive him, and only after Uncle Emmanuel had written her an apologetic letter, swearing he had been drunk at the time.

The blue ribbon sparked reminders of little things that his Mom also used to do for his beloved grandfather. Tony recalled a time when he was about four years old and sitting on Pop's bed, watching him getting ready for his big date with Florence, a lady who came by Mrs. Schmidt's house every Thursday afternoon to groom her twin Mexican Chihuahuas, Juan and Two.

"Some 'babe,' that Florence is, wouldn't ya say, Balonie?" his grandfather had asked in a hungry-sounding sort of growl, carefully combing and re-combing what few strands he still retained on the top of his head. "One hell of a rack on her, too, huh, kid?"

Tony remembered enthusiastically nodding his head in wholehearted agreement despite having no idea what a "rack" was, though assuming that it had to be something good, given how many times his grandfather kept bringing it up, just as he did whenever "I Dream of Jeanie" was on TV.

"Pray your ol' Pop gets lucky tonight, huh, kid?" his grandfather had said on his way out the door, transferring Tony into to his Mom's arms in exchange for the bouquet of flowers in hers, which she had hand-picked from their garden and tied a blue satin ribbon around. Tony remembered his Mom balancing him on her hip and swaying back and forth as she reassured Pop that all women preferred hand-picked flowers to store-bought ones.

"Ya sure this bow isn't gonna make me look faggy, Ruskie?" Pop had nervously double-checked, wondering if something a little more macho, like electrical tape, might have been a better choice.

"Relax, darling. Florence will view it as yet another perfectly thoughtful gesture on your part," Amanda had calmly explained. "And women never throw satin ribbons away. So she'll tuck it into a drawer somewhere, and every time she happens upon it, she'll think of you."

Tony recalled how glum he had felt watching Pop excitedly climb into the front seat next to Lou, already knowing how boring the evening ahead was going to be without his grandfather around.

Taking Pop literally, Tony had included him in his prayers that evening, wrapping up with "...and please let Pop get lucky tonight." But his Mom had said that it wasn't proper to ask for something like that and insisted that he promptly apologize to God. Later, when his Dad had come in to kiss him goodnight, Tony had asked for his take on the matter, not quite sure who had it right: his Mom or grandfather.

Jim Almeida, with the wisdom of Soloman, explained that both of them had been half-right; that it was okay for a man to ask God to "get lucky," but only on the night he was planning to propose marriage to the love of his life, when a guy needed all the luck he could get.

Tony had gone on to experience one of the most restless, fitful sleeps of his life that night, tossing and turning and awakening every hour, or so, positive that Pop's request for a "get lucky" prayer could only mean that he was planning to propose marriage to the love of his life and live with Florence instead of with him.

"What, are ya outta your mind, Balonie?" Pop had roared the following morning at the breakfast table after finally getting Tony to come clean with why he was being so quiet and sulky. "First off, ya only get one 'love of your life,' and that was your blessed Grandma Nalda, may she forever rest in peace, amen. Second, if I ever even thought about marrying another lady, your blessed grandma, may the angels be with her, would reach down from Heaven and smack me in the back of the head so hard, I'd be lucky to remember my own name. Not to mention, once I got up to Heaven myself and joined your Grandma Nalda, God rest her soul, I'd never hear the goddamned end of it... And third of all, after ya been married to a lady like your grandma, may the Saints protect her, there ain't another lady alive that could take her place in a million years. So don't you be losin' any more beauty sleep over some gal ever ropin' in this old footslogger, ya hear me, kid?"

Tony had never felt so relieved or elated in his life; nor so surprised when his Mom had suddenly burst into tears, compelling his Dad to sigh and lay down his holy Wall Street Journal long enough to comfort her back to normality.

"These blubbering bleeding-heart ruskies!" Pop had shaken his head in utter amazement. "You'd think they all attended the same commie college and graduated with honors in Weeping, or something!"

But the major thing that would always stand out in Tony's mind, and for which he would always be eternally grateful to his Mom, was how tenderhearted, maternal, and fiercely protective she had been with Pop in his later years, when he'd begun slipping into his "second childhood." While another daughter-in-law might have suggested, or even insisted, that plans be made to eventually put Pop away in an appropriate facility, his Mom would never hear of it.

"He's simply going through his second childhood and well-deserves to," she would promptly and ferociously reply in Pop's defense to anyone crazy enough to even so much as broach the subject; or, for that matter, to even call Pop's early Alzheimers by it's actual name. As far as Amanda Almeida was concerned, Pop had honorably served his country, then selflessly labored on the docks to give her dear husband Jim a good home, secure upbringing, and an excellent education. Indulging Pop's orneriness and providing him with an equally happy and secure home-life in his twilight years was the very least Amanda felt she could do in return. If Pop wished to chase the cat around in the yard at two o'clock in the morning, or spend all day gazing out Tony's bedroom window, waiting for him to return from school, or stop to chit-chat with a shrub on occasion, mistaking it for an old Army buddy, then so be it.

When the time had eventually arrived for Pop to require a little assistance with such things as getting dressed in the morning and remembering his way home from an afternoon stroll, Amanda had simply hired a "companion" for him: a lovely, understanding, remarkably patient and tolerant young African-American caretaker who didn't seem to mind a bit when Pop addressed him as "Sambo" instead of his name, "Samuel." Nor did he seem to mind being referred to as a welfare recipient by Pop no fewer than twenty times a day; nor Pop's daily diatribes, insisting that Samuel "get over slavery and find a damned job," despite the fact that Pop_ was_ Samuel's job.

Whenever Amanda wasn't able to find a stand-in "companion" on Samuel's days off, she would simply take Pop along to her various functions and engagements, without a care as to what anybody thought or said about it. She had even sacrificed her precious Garden Society membership in the process and was mortified when she and Pop made the society pages the next day. Tony remembered his Dad telling him the story years later, with tears of laughter in his eyes: Apparently, during the introduction of the Garden Society's guest speaker, His Royal Highness Prince Maria Emanuel of Saxony, Pop had bellowed out at the top of his lungs, "Go back to Germany, ya fat Nazi!" only to further horrify the Society members by yelling out "fag!" every time Prince Maria's name was spoken.

Later, when the Chairwoman had insisted that Amanda Almeida promise never to bring her father-in-law along to another meeting, Amanda had risen to her feet, tossed her membership card to the floor, and regally exited the room on Pop's arm and with her head held high, proudly and loudly huffing, "I'll have you know I've been thrown out of far, far better societies than _this_ before!"

Tony would also always be eternally grateful to the powers that be for having allowed Pop to die of a heart attack in his sleep before the insidious Alzheimer's disease had progressed to the point where Pop might not have been able to recognize him anymore. That would've slayed him, Tony had always known of himself.

"Y'know what I never understood?" he said to his Dad, who by this time had made noteworthy progress repairing and assembling the model parts. "Remember how Mom would never just ground me, but Pop, too, whenever we got into trouble?" he asked. "What in the world was that about? I never understood why Pop even indulged 'the commie' and went along with it. I mean — he was never exactly fond of Mom, as I recall."

"Your grandfather?" his Dad chuckled slyly. "Your grandfather adored your mother," he said, feeling his son's eyebrows raise and mouth fall open without even having to look.

"Uhh… y'sure we're talking about the same guy, Dad?" Tony asked in amazement, thoroughly startled by how uncharacteristically naive and uninformed his father was with regard to the rancor that had existed between his own wife and father, right under his own roof. "I mean, all Pop ever did was snap and growl at her. Those two were arch-enemies the entire time I was growing up... Or arch-rivals, at the very least."

Jim peered down at the cockpit's splintered canopy mooring and smirked.

"I'm sure it must've looked that way to a young guy, but Pop — well, he had a heart about the size of China, and at least three-quarters of it belonged to your Mom."

Jim Almeida glanced up with a Cheshire grin, noting his son's speechlessness. "You hadn't even been born yet when your grandmother Almeida got sick," Jim rewound, beginning at the beginning.

"Nalda, y'mean? Your mother?"

"My mother. Right. But from Pop's perspective — well, that was his beloved wife lying there, on her deathbed," Jim Almeida explained. "And it wasn't one of his own two daughters who took care of her for all those months she was dying, either. That was his daughter-in-law — your Mom. This perfect stranger I'd brought home one weekend and introduced to him as my wife. Don't ever do that to your mother, by the way," his Dad paused and injected, his eyes making a momentary Freudian pit stop at Michelle before parking themselves on him. "Ya listening to me?"

"Uh-huh," Tony nodded attentively, reading the sign in his Dad's eyes that said, "Warning: Don't even bother trying to hide anything from me 'cause I can still read your face as clearly as I did back on that prairie, with the little house and that Laura Whatzername girl..."

"So your mother — this perfect stranger — was the one who saw Pop's wife through her final days. And without anyone having to ask her, either. She just took it upon herself. That's the kind of stuff I was alluding to before — about there being a lot more to your Mom than what's lying around on the surface."

Jim Almeida's words trailed off as he paused to smile to himself, his face illuminating with the same familiar glow Tony had seen a million times before. It never ceased to mesmerize and amaze him that, even after so many years of marriage, his parents were still be so conspicuously and demonstrably infatuated with each other.

"I never knew about any of that," Tony sheepishly admitted. "Pop never talked about her. Nalda, I mean."

"Yeah, well, probably because it damned near killed him to lose her, the poor guy," his Dad tenderly reminisced.

"So then — See, I don't get it, Dad. I mean, if Mom did all that for Pop's wife, and Pop was so grateful and loved her it, then why was he always, y'know, yelling at her and calling her a commie, and stuff? Like he couldn't stand her?"

"That..." his Dad chuckled in fond memory. "That was all nothing but hot air and bravado. Just Pop's way of reestablishing his authority. Rebuilding his pride — his ego. Your mother always knew that," his Dad explained. "Pop was a proud man, y'gotta remember. This tough longshoreman, working the Brooklyn docks. And here he was, with a daughter-in-law he didn't even know, at the weakest, most vulnerable point in his life, with his dear wife dying and his heart breaking, seeing her in pain like that... Did ya ever see Pop cry?"

"Never," Tony said without hesitation, shaking his head as a slightly more defined and varicolored portrait of his grandfather and mother's relationship began to emerge.

"Well, that's about all he could do in Nalda's final days. And then after she was gone — geezsh," his Dad somberly reflected, leaving Tony to fill in the obvious. "He had one helluva fight with depression, let me tell ya. And whose shoulder do ya think he did all his crying on — this big, tough, proud world-war vet?"

Tony nodded, appreciating how damaging it must have been to Pop's ego.

"Y'gotta imagine how foolish the guy must've felt, too, realizing how badly he'd misjudged your Mom in the beginning —treating her like she was some kinda Jezabelle who'd led me astray from my studies. And then to have this she-devil turn out to be his own personal lifesaver —his rock. He never would've gotten through those days without that Mom of yours, chief," his Dad guaranteed him. "She stuck like glue to him through that god-awful depression. Moved him right in with us when we bought the house in Westchester. She never even discussed it with me," his Dad said, with a soft chuckle. "I came home one night and there's Pop, all settled into his own room. All his old furniture set up exactly the same way he had it in Brooklyn. Your mother even matched the old wallpaper. 'Vintage,' they were calling it by then. Cost me a fortune," he grinned, shaking his head as he mindlessly affixed the newly repaired wing fairings to the Thunderbolt's body.

"And so that's how Pop eventually recovered from the depression?" Tony asked, delighting in the tender expression on his Dad's face. "By moving in and starting up a new life with you guys?"

"Nahh," his father replied with a sly smile. "That's where you came in, chief..."

Tony felt his throat suddenly clutch and a surprising flash of moisture instantly coat his eyes, overwhelmed by the impact of his Dad's words. The thought that his arrival into the world had played such a key, pivotal role in his grandfather's recovery had astonished, elated, bewildered, and floored him all in the same second.

"If ya thought Pop was grateful to your mother for what she'd done before that point, well... Let's just say that the old man was her slave for life after she had cooked _you_ up," his Dad elucidated, pausing to pat his son's cheek upon noticing his glistening eyes. "Me? I got no credit at all. You'd think it was a case of immaculate conception. I was just the guy who paid the bills," he mused, with a self-deprecating smirk.

"I never knew any of this, Dad," Tony said, rocked by the bevy of emotions banging around inside him. He suddenly felt was a little shallow, as he had always assumed and characterized his Mom to be, and a little foolish, too, like his grandfather must've felt upon realizing that he just may have possibly misjudged Amanda Almeida a bit.

"So all that grumbling and snapping at Mom—"

"That was always music to your mother's ears, chief," his Dad surprised him. "That was her barometer—her way of gauging Pop's 'emotional recovery.' As long as he was yelling about her liberal views and child-rearing practices, and acting like his old cantankerous self again — the way he was when your mother first met him — well, nothing made her happier. To her, it meant was that Pop was doing okay again... Your mother's a pretty remarkable woman when ya look a little closer — if ya can even find her under all those Tiffany trinkets and Givenchy suits and those Jimmy Shoe shoes, or whatever the hell that guy's name is " he summarized, wrapping up his Almeida History: 101 class and rising to his feet.

As Tony lowered Michelle into the bed, reassuring himself for the umpteenth time that she wasn't going to slip into a coma, Jim Almeida set the fully assembled P-47D Balls-Out Bubble-Top Thunderbolt atop his son's dresser to dry.

"Michelle's not gonna believe it when she sees — Geeziz," Tony paused, staring at his Dad for a second. "Ya think she's gonna remember — y'know — this whole night? Gilligan — and Mary Ann? Geeziz..."

"The Skipper, too," his Dad reflected.

"The millionaire... and his wife," Tony added, unable to arrest an ensuing burst of laughter .

"God, I hope not, the poor little thing," Jim Almeida replied in all sincerity, unable but to heartily laugh along. "If she even remembers anything about the model, just let her assume she assembled it herself. If the good Lord sees fit to take her memory away, who are we to interfere with the grand plan... "

Tony agreed, going in for an Old Spice-drenched bear hug as the buzzer sounded, signaling Gerald and Olivia's arrival downstairs.

"Look, uhh — if she presses you for details about tonight, just nod your head a lot. Keep things vague. As long as ya don't deny or confirm anything, or give her a direct, definitive answer, technically you won't really be lying. That's how your mother always does it," his Dad assured him from experience, draping an arm over his shoulder as they walked to the door. "You bring her around to the house soon, and we'll do this right, y'hear?" he added, tightening his tie and slipping into his jacket before heading out the door. "Anything you, uhh... ya wanna share with, chief?" he asked with a sly grin, casting his eyes back toward the hallway, in reference to Michelle, whom he had more than a sneaking suspicion would soon be joining the family.

"Nothing you haven't already picked up on," Tony artfully replied, cryptically and unofficially confirming his father's suspicion, and not even wincing, as he normally did, when his Dad planted a firm hand on one cheek and a classically sappy, infamously gushy Jim Almeida kiss against the other.

As Tony peeled his clothes off and snuggly molded his body up against Michelle's, he considered his Dad's suggestion that he put his anger on temporary hold the next time his Mom makes him crazy, and change the subject to something about her, instead. Something related to her early Almeida days; like, what she remembers about Nalda; what had inspired her to "stick like glue" to Pop throughout his "worst of times"; where she had found the patience for Pop in the first place; why everybody in this entire family seemed to have been born with a patience gene, except for him.

He could ask his Mom for a more detailed accounting of Pop's battle with depression; how long he'd been afflicted with it; how long it had taken to transition out of it after this newborn of hers had arrived on the scene — this infant savior, of sorts; a wonderous ray of sunshine, enlightenment, and hope, evidently; this remarkably gifted cherub, blessed with supernatural curative powers, or so it would seem; this exceptionally handsome infant, with the pictures to prove it, who blossomed into a poster boy for above-average intelligence, as report cards would appear to suggest; this remarkably fine figure of a man — a testament to masculinity, sexuality, and _huuuuuuugeness_, as some have been known to remark at the top of their lungs; this one they call Anthony Almeida, better known and loved by all as Tony Almeida. TonyBalonie, if you will. The kid. The chief. The CTU Director. The Sperminator.


	15. Her Horror

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 15: Her Horror_

Michelle was still alive, though sleeping like a dead person, when Tony had awoken, dragged on some clothes, and quietly crept out of the apartment. He wasn't thrilled about having to haul it to the store, but somewhere along the line someone had convinced him that making scrambled eggs with anything other than whole cream was equivalent to a crime against humanity. Rather than find himself up on tribunal charges in The Hague, or struck down by lightening, or whatever the penalty might be for such gross culinary violations, he'd decided to make a run to the small Italian gourmet store a few minutes away.

Normally, he would've called Mrs. Sanchez the night before and asked her to pick up whatever items he needed, but he hadn't been thinking about food last night and it was too late to get hold of her now. It was early Sunday morning, which meant that she was either gathering the family for Church, in which case she'd be too busy to answer the phone; or was already at Church, in which case it would be a sin to answer the phone; or had already left Church and was presently in transit to his place, in which case it would be too dangerous to answer the phone while driving. She would also get a brain tumor, Mrs. Sanchez was convinced, if she used a cell phone excessively, which in her mind meant more than once or twice a month.

"Tony, ya hunka chunka burnin' love! Where ya been keepin' yourself, sweet cheeks?"

"Hey, Millie," Tony grinned, dumping the items in his arms onto the counter.

"Whole cream. Uh-huh... You're cooking for some Saturday-night chickie, aren't ya?... How come ya always manage to find the time to boff every other babe in this town but me, huh? That's what I wanna know..."

"I've already told ya a hundred times, Millie. You're too much woman for me," Tony reminded the eightysomething as her shaky hand placed his change in his cupped palm.

"Ya better believe it, sugar butt," she croaked out a sassy growl to the grins and chuckles of the people on line behind him. "Tell that hunky doorman of yours that since you won't throw me a hump, I'm gonna have to settle for him..."

"Will do," Tony promised with a warm smile, seductively sliding his change into the back pocket of his jeans for the express purpose of taunting her as he moseyed toward the exit.

"Bye, sugar shanks," Millie's creaky voice growled after him, thick trifocals glued to his glutes.

"Bye, baby," he softly crooned over his shoulder with just enough volume for her hearing aid to pick up the sensual lilt in his voice as he made his departure, throwing a little extra sway into his swagger.

He grinned on his way to the car, checking the small grocery bag to see what she had slipped him this time: Perugina hazelnut chocolates, his favorite. He always wished Millie's tiny, skeletal hand were just a little bigger and less arthritic whenever she would grab him a fistful from behind the counter and the owner's back.

As he stuffed two of the chocolates into his jacket pocket for Michelle, his grin slowly morphed into an apprehensive sigh at the thought of having to soon explain the bottle of barbiturate-laced spring water to her. He prayed she wouldn't be furious with him for not having eyed the broken seal on the cap with a little more suspicion and scrutiny. He dreaded the possibility of spending their Sunday — their last precious twenty-four hours together before work would gear itself up again — with her royally steamed at him for having exercised such uncharacteristic carelessness.

Michelle was feeling confused and frightened. It was dark; she felt cold; intimidated; threatened, like danger was lurking in the shadows around her somewhere. She couldn't identify its source. She just felt a presence of gloom and wished that Tony were with her.

She picked up the sound of a distant buzzing, but wasn't sure at first if it was some kind of ringing in her ears or the sound of a small private aircraft flying just a little too low over the neighborhood. Her first thought was of a terrorist attack: a small plane crashing itself into a high-rise apartment building. It was just the sort of mass-high-anxiety result that small, independent cells were seeking to achieve these days. Her feet felt like lead, which worried her, given the eerie feeling that she might have to bolt from the scene at a nanosecond's notice. She wondered again where Tony was, just in case her feelings of impending calamity weren't a product of her imagination, but a sixth-sensory warning of legitimate danger.

The buzzing was quickly getting louder, intensifying, as if the aircraft were coming in closer at an accelerated speed. Her fear level instantly rocketed. She wanted to grab her phone and call CTU to see what the satellite had, but she couldn't find it. Her vision seemed blurred; everything looked gray and white and oddly out of focus, like she was peering through fog or mist or a billow of smoke. She didn't smell smoke, but something was nevertheless definitely wrong. Her entire environment reeked of wrong.

Dragging along on her lead-like legs, she struggled to at least see from which direction the sound was approaching. Her vision was obscured, but the plane sounded like it was nearly upon her now. The hum of its engines roared in her ears. She felt her mouth involuntarily open, anticipating the worst and readying itself to react. Her body was breaking into a sweat. Why couldn't she see clearly? And where in the world was Tony?

Michelle turned her head to the right and jolted back in shock at the sight of huge, black eyes staring directly at her, immediately reminding her of the classic drawings and film representations of UFO aliens she'd seen in documentaries and offbeat scientific journals. A blood-curdling scream leapt from her lungs, instantly jarring her wide awake.

She bolted from her dead sleep straight upright in the bed, gasping in shock, then immediately found herself screaming again at the sight of a small boy leaning against the side of the bed only inches away from her, with a model airplane in his hand, a terrified look on his face, and a scream of his own roaring out from his lungs in reaction to hers. Another slightly taller figure directly behind him reeled back in fright, compelling Michelle to release another blood-curdling scream.

Tony was through the bedroom door in a flash.

"Hey!" he hollered furiously at the top of his lungs, prompting Mrs. Sanchez's five-year-old grandson, Miguel, to scream even louder than he already was. He dropped the P-47D Thunderbolt model plane that he'd been playing with onto the bed and made a mad break for the door, his equally panic-stricken seven-year-old brother, Basilio, glued to his heels.

"Didn't I tell you two to stay outta here!" Tony thundered, spinning around in enough time to clip the tail of one of the brothers — which one, he couldn't tell, given the lightening speed at which they'd made their petrified exit, but safely assuming it had been seven-year-old Basilio, judging from the high-pitched wailing he was now performing for Mrs. Sanchez in the kitchen, as if Joe Frazier had just flattened him with a left hook.

"Who... who...?" Michelle gasped in near-hysteria, ghost-white, disoriented, and visibly traumatized.

"I'm sorry, honey," Tony calmed her in as soothing a tone as he could muster under the flabbergasting circumstances, scrambling across the bed. "I'm so sorry, baby. C'mere," he profusely apologized, sweeping her into a kneeling position and encompassing her trembling body in a warm embrace. "I told them to stay the hell outta here... Are you alright?" he rued, gently kissing and fawning over her while she struggled to orient herself to her surroundings.

"Who are they?" she gasped with saucer-sized eyes, feeling nearly sick to her stomach from the overload of adrenaline now saturating her system.

She closed her lids to catch her breath, curling her arms up between his chest and her own, unconsciously clutching two fistfuls of his shirt. Her heart pounded wildly as Tony's hands gently swirled around her back and shoulders and hair, pressing her cheek against his chest, which was pounding nearly as violently as hers.

"You're okay... Everything's okay," he sought to reassure her in a soft, comforting voice, chastened by the look of sheer panic and confusion on her blood-drained face as he tipped her head back to measure her recovery stage, the first phase of which had yet to kick in.

"I thought we were being invaded," she panted breathlessly in a groggy haze. "I didn't know where you were. I was searching all over..." she struggled to explain.

"I'm right here," he calmed her. "You were just having a bad dream," he said in a gentle murmur, laying a few curative kisses against her clammy forehead before returning the side of her face to his chest.

His heart ached and oozed sympathy. She had been sleeping so soundly, and he had been so successful for nearly an hour in keeping Mrs. Sanchez's two grandsons away from the bedroom, but had evidently turned his back on them for just a couple of minutes too long.

"I became so frightened when I couldn't find you... and I screamed," she skittishly recounted, gulping down a throatful of much-needed oxygen.

"I know. I heard you," he tenderly cooed, stroking his fingertips against her hair and listening quietly as she chronicled, in horror, the details of the nightmare that had jarred her awake.

"I thought it was a — like, a small plane at first," she debriefed herself, fighting the grogginess blanketing her brain. "Possibly a terrorist attack on a... on a building. _This_ building. And then I saw the little one, with the big eyes. And I thought he was an alien."

"Nah, they're both citizens, honey," Tony cluelessly allayed her fears.

"No, I mean... I... But how — Where did they come from?" she stammered in a haze of confusion.

"Well, the family originally crossed over from a small Mexican border town," he slowly began the saga of the Sanchezes, swiping some curls off to the side.

"No, no," she interrupted. "I meant, why are they here?"

" I, uhh... I don't know, honey. I would guess for the same reasons most migrate. Poverty levels. The lousy job market..."

"No, I meant _here_. How did they get here? In this room? Who _are_ they?"

"Mr. Tony me golpeó!" seven-year-old Basilio's voice could be heard ratting Tony out at top volume, his wails falling upon Mrs. Sanchez's proverbially deaf and disinterested ears.

He hated when they called him that — "Mr. Tony." It always made him feel like a hairdresser. Pressing Michelle's cheek close to his chest with his hand shielding her exposed ear, he turned his head toward the open door.

_"English!"_ he bellowed out, saving his housekeeper the trouble of correcting the boy, which she was forever constantly having to do every couple of sentences, it seemed. "They're Mrs. Sanchez's grandsons," he turned back to Michelle and explained in a considerably lower and gentler tone. "She comes by Sunday mornings for the dry cleaning and laundry, and drops the clean stuff off... does up a grocery list... That kinda stuff. They'll be outta here in a minute, honey, I promise..."

As if Michelle's grogginess hadn't already been certain to disorient and upset her upon arising, he could murder those two for making matters a thousand times worse now, reintroducing her to consciousness in a state of pure terror.

"Sorry, baby," he atoned again. "I would've called her last night and told her to skip this morning, only..."

He halted himself from referencing any more of "last night," remembering his Dad's suggestion to "keep things vague," like his Mom always did, in the hopes of sparing Michelle needless embarrassment. The fewer questions he answered definitively, the fewer details she would come to learn about statements, lyrics, visitors, and other assorted highlights of the evening, which could only serve to mortify her.

"What time is it?" Michelle asked, noticing daylight peeking through the thin slats of the drawn window blinds as Tony coaxed her head back against the pillows. "I don't even remember going to bed... It's really Sunday already?" she double-checked in surprise. "Sunday morning?"

"Yeah, somewhere around eight-thirty," he said softly, twisting his body sideways, half on and half off her with an elbow on either side of her shoulders. She continued unconsciously white-knuckling his shirt, holding on for dear life as if it were a life preserver. "I almost woke you up a hundred times last night," Tony confessed. "I missed you..."

"Where was I?" she asked through a deep, arresting yawn that had suddenly overpowered her. As she worked to blink the thick sensation of sleepiness from her eyes, she struggled to recall anything beyond blow-drying her hair the night before. "Why do I feel like I've been run over by a truck?"

He knew that he owed her a full and honest accounting of everything that had transpired in a physiological sense, including Max's professional assessment and prognosis; it was all of the rest of the night's events that he felt she could probably live without knowing.

"Yeah, uhh... Y'see, it's, umm..." he hesitantly geared up, rubbing the sides of his thumbs lullingly against the corners of her brow. "Look, I, uhh... I don't want you to be alarmed about anything, 'cause you were never in any real danger, Max said," he wanted to assure her up front.

"Max?" she asked, quizzically.

The same eyes that were fighting to drift back to sleep just seconds earlier were now suddenly wide open and attentive at the sounds of the words "danger" and "alarmed."

"He's, uhh... Now, don't over-react," Tony reiterated, abruptly interrupting himself and straining his neck to call out to Mrs. Sanchez for some coffee.

"He's what? Who is he?" she queried again, with growing apprehension.

"He's a doctor," Tony explained with total calm, seeking to set a good example.

"Huh? Why did I need a doctor?" Michelle gawked, startled and struggling to sit herself up. "Did I hit my head?... Oh, God, do I — do I have amnesia? I can't remember anything... except that I remember my name. Is that amnesia? Does that count?"

"It's okay," he gently shushed her, coaxing her back against the pillow. "It was, umm... Remember that spring water I gave ya? When you were drying your hair last night?"

"It was poison?" Michelle gasped in horror, struggling a little harder to sit up this time, but quickly lying back again upon sensing that her tampon had outlived its usefulness approximately a half a day ago.

"No, no... no... It's just that, umm... the bottle of water... well, it turned out to belong to one of my Mom's friends. That woman 'Joyce'... That one who was pinching me at the party, remember?"

"They were all pinching you," Michelle said, relieved that she was at least able to recall the flock of women surrounding and subjecting him to assorted cheek pinches, pats, and lipstick-laden pecks.

"Yeah, well, uhh... she was pinching a little more than my face," he frowned with an element of pain and light nausea, recalling the disquieting feeling of having his butt blatantly worked over by the mid-sixtysomething, who'd had enough plastic surgery to look like a fortysomething going on sixtysomething. "She'd stuck the bottle of water in the refrigerator to chill and apparently forgot to take it with her, and... umm..."

He paused for a moment, thinking of how to best put it.

"And?"

"And she's, uh... Well, her husband's been known to sign her into a rehab on occasion."

"For?" Michelle asked slowly and guardedly, with her head cocking a little to the side, wondering for a frightening moment if she'd just had her first experience with heroin, given how remarkably groggy she felt.

"Sedatives, honey. Barbiturates. You slept really well," he sheepishly allayed her worst fear with forlorn eyes, quickly leaning in with an apologetic peck to her lips. "I got on the phone with the doctor, just to be on the safe side," he assured her, resourcefully eliminating the part about his Dad having actually placed the call. "And, so, uhh... So, Max came right over and checked your pulse and irises and heartbeat, and stuff, and said that it looked like ya chugged down a pretty healthy dose, but that there wasn't anything to worry about — that it would just knock you out for the night, and you'd probably wake up pretty groggy and, umm... Well, I'm just really sorry, honey. I hardly even know what to say."

Which was the first fully truthful statement he'd made thus far. Men were supposed to protect women, according to how he'd been raised; not compromise their health and welfare exposing them to dangerous doses of controlled substances.

Michelle stared at him, stunned.

"You angry?" he contritely inquired, with caution and a slight wince in his eyes after a few moments of deadly silence had passed.

"Well, I'm — I'm not pleased," she answered as truthfully as she was able, still processing not only the surprise of having been drugged, but shocked that she had been evaluated by a doctor she'd never even heard of, much less met, and whose face she couldn't even bring front and center in her mind.

She looked away from him momentarily, shifting through a morass of blurry, hazy images lumbering lethargically around in her head. "Were we... Did you have the Navarone Guns on last night?" she asked, her eyes squinting hard into the distance as if trying to focus in on a snapshot of the evening's events that were nailed to a tree about a mile away. "I seem to remember something about... World War II, or... or maybe it was World War I? I can't quite—"

"Uhh... There, uhh... there might've been something on TV," Tony nervously suggested. "I wasn't really paying attention," he added, with technical accuracy.

"Did I...?" She paused and frowned and squinted hard for another moment, shaking her head back and forth as if not quite knowing what to make of the next mental image that fought its way up to the front of the line.

"What, baby..."

"Did I — did I shove my hand... down your jeans?" she frowned in confusion.

"I, uhh... I think I would remember that," he replied — evasively and deliberately misleadingly, yes, but it was a perfectly true statement when you dissected and analyzed it: Indeed, he would remember an event like that. He was merely neglecting to elaborate upon whether or not he did.

"It's so weird," she frowned in frustration. "I... After a certain point, I can't seem to — I can't remember anything. I was kissing you. That I remember. And then I thought — I could've sworn my hand somehow got into the front of your jeans. And then I was laughing about something..."

"Not about what ya found in my jeans, I would hope," he self-deprecatingly jested, knowing better, however, based upon her own _huuuuuuuuuuge_ declarations on the subject last night. But she didn't respond to his lighthearted quip, her mind already lost again in deep thought. "Just relax, honey. It's not important," he urged her, peripherally catching the appearance of Mrs. Sanchez's grandsons at the bedroom door.

They made their entrance with baby steps, the older one carefully clenching a mug in each fist with eyes glued to the steaming coffee wobbling perilously on the surface; the younger one glued to his heels, with a hand clutching each side of his brother's polo shirt, slowly and steadily steering him in the direction of the nightstand.

Their sudden appearance startled Michelle, compelling her to take note of her excessively jittery nerves.

"Usted me golpeó," the seven-year-old, Basilio, seethed at Tony with a brooding frown and dark, angry eyes glaring icily as if telepathically promising to return someday to exact revenge for the demoralizing swat he'd earlier received.

_"English,"_ Tony snarled with an intentionally imposing and overly firm tone, taking the mugs of coffee from Basilio's tight fists and setting them down on the nightstand. "And ya wouldn't have gotten smacked if you'd stayed outta this room, like I told ya," he was quick to remind him of how the world worked.

"You'll regret this day, gringo," the miniature Pancho Villa vowed with a steely stare, hands to his sides and standing his ground firmly and fearlessly while his little brother peeked out from behind his back, quaking in pure, unmitigated fear.

"You'll regret the next minute of your shrimpy life if you're not outta here by the count of three," Tony vowed him back, watching Basilio slowly and belligerently turn, bravely taking all three seconds to leisurely saunter over to the door, with pride and nobility in his stride, while five-year-old Miguel concurrently bolted out of the room at warp speed, screaming for his grandmother to get herself in there before Mr. Tony massacred his brother.

Tony returned his attention to Michelle, who had since immersed herself in another round of ruminations.

"Was Gilligan's Island on TV?" she turned her head and hesitantly asked with a small, worried frown notched into her brow.

"I, uhh... I couldn't tell ya, honey. Like I said, I wasn't really paying attention to the TV," he cagily sidestepped, again safely within the bounds of technical accuracy, legally speaking.

Michelle stared at him warily for a moment. The evasive, noncommittal nature of his every answer had not escaped her. She wasn't a highly skilled or experienced interrogator by any means, but she had received the same rudimentary, basic training at Quantico as every other federal officer; certainly enough to recognize when a subject was repeatedly and intentionally supplying vague answers to clear, straightforward questions.

"That's a pretty distinctive tune," she reminded him. "Wouldn't you remember if it had been playing or not?"

"Uhh... geez, honey, I don't know. That kinda stuff doesn't really register with me," he sheepishly stuck to the story, wondering just how transparently his bald-faced deceptiveness was coming across.

She eyed him for a brief moment longer until a red warning light flashed in her head, signaling that her tampon had about four seconds of staying power left before she'd officially be on her own.

"Where are ya going?" he asked.

"I can't tell you. It'll upset you," she confidently assured him, pushing herself into a seated position to mentally test and assess the gravitational state of affairs.

"Tell me," he insisted.

"Just stand back. This could get ugly," she muttered fair warning, guesstimating the number of steps to the bathroom.

"Oh, uhh... Oh," he mumbled nervously after finally catching on. With the usual deer-in-the-headlights expression frozen on his face, he swiftly moved from the bed and off to the side, figuring he should probably give her some room for whatever reason women seemed to require it. "Give her some room, dammit" and "quick, boil some water" were the two golden rules men were to follow whenever they didn't know what the hell was going on. He had learned them ages ago, but had never clearly understood either; especially the boiling water one. What was that for? Tea?

"So, uhh — so what should I do? Am I supposed to do something?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head in her usual dismay.

"Just don't yell at me if you end up having to replace this mattress... and carpet... and nightshirt," she warned, eyeing the relatively short distance once again before launching herself from the bed and beating a hasty retreat to the bathroom.

"We go now, Anthony!" Mrs. Sanchez called out to him from the living room as Michelle safely rounded the corner and vanished from his view.

"Y'got everything?" he hollered back on his way down the hall, hearing the doorbell ring, immediately followed by a stampede of footsteps as the five- and seven-year-old brothers scrambled into action, like war-footed fighter pilots responding to a red alert, engaging in a shoving battle along the way over whose turn it was to unlock the bolt as opposed to the less-exciting task of turning the doorknob. By the time Tony had entered the living room, Mrs. Sanchez had accepted a long-stemmed rose box from the florist delivery boy and was laying it to rest on the table.

"Carry those things down for your grandmother," Tony firmly ordered Basilio after physically separating the battling brothers by their collars, then reaching into his pocket for the handful of dollars Millie had given him earlier and stuffing them into the delivery kid's hand.

Basilio stewed with an angry sulk, averse to taking orders from his nemesis of any kind, on any level, for any reason, which Tony was more than aware of. It's precisely why he would always go out of his way to issue them. He and the kid had just never taken a shining to each other; not even when Basilio was a baby. The minute his first tooth had grown in, he had promptly bitten Tony with it. It was as though the two of them had been custom-made to clash with each other, like water and oil; like centuries-old arch-antagonists who kept reincarnating, over and over, for no other reason than to seek the other out and annoy the hell out of him.

"I see you again someday, gringo. This I can promise you," Basilio brashly glared up at him with the fearlessness of a miniature Yul Brynner, tossing the lighter bag of dry cleaning to his little brother and dragging the substantially heavier laundry bag behind him to the door.

"Anytime, any place," Tony reiterated his longstanding open invitation, subconsciously foisting his chest outward an inch or two.

"The lovely señorita — tell her she has my pity," Basilio paused to smoothly sneer, like a Tattoo-sized graduate of the Ricardo Montalban School of Over-Dramatization.

"Save your pity for your scrawny little butt after I kick it down the stairwell for ya," Tony counter-sneered, giving Basilio a farewell shove through the door, simultaneously smiling and waving a pleasant good-bye to Mrs. Sanchez.

"Little punk," he groused to himself under his breath as he shut the door. He crossed over to the flower box on the table and slid the card from its tiny envelope, smiling to himself as he read the inscription:

_Forgive me for last night, baby. All my love — Tony_

His Dad had sent them on his behalf, he knew, convinced that he himself would forget — as he did — despite it having been drilled into his head over the years, time and again, that flowers and a proper apology were mandatories after having successfully angered, disappointed, or otherwise oafishly screwed things up with a woman. Neglecting to send them was not only uncivilized and disrespectful, but tantamount to committing romantic suicide.

Tony returned the card to the envelope and tucked it back between the folds of the blue satin ribbon around the box — his Mom's contribution to the effort — deciding to leave the flowers where they were for now, just in case he needed something to cheer Michelle up with a little later on. Amid her many mixed emotions, he couldn't help but detect some annoyance, and even disappointment in him, both in her voice and her eyes.

Reentering the bedroom, he was surprised to hear the shower cascading into the tub and drifted into the bathroom, feeling a little wounded.

"Hey... you mad at me?" he asked, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest.

"What do you mean?" she called out to him.

"Don't you want me in there with you?" he inquired, a noticeable presence of dejection embedded in his tone.

"You were already dressed. I thought you'd taken a shower earlier."

"I was waiting for you," he brooded.

"Well, come in, then, okay?" she said to the sound of ensuing silence. "Okay?" she repeated upon receiving no response.

"Not if you don't want me to," he mumbled.

"I want you to, dear," she assured him.

Silence hung in the air for a moment.

"If you wanted me to, ya would've called me..."

"Just — Honey? Just get in the shower, all right? For goodness sake. I'm ordering you into the shower as part of your penalty for jeopardizing my life, okay?"

"Your life was never in jeopardy, Michelle," he muttered defensively, hurriedly yanking his shirt over his head, not wanting to waste time opening buttons.

"Oh? Read up on 'TSS.' Consider that another part of your penalty."

"What the hell is that?" he queried, yanking open the button and zipper on his jeans, his mood becoming a little brighter with every article of clothing that hit the floor.

"'Toxic shock syndrome.' It's when you leave a tampon in for too long and you end up dead from a bacterial infection," she informed him.

"Geeziz, Michelle," he winced. "Do ya have to... say that?"

"What?"

"That word," he whined.

"Tampon?"

"Don't — Geeziz, ya didn't have to say it _again_. Can't we just develop, y'know... like, a code word, or something? Geez..."

"Will you just get in here, please?" she snapped at him, her nerves already sufficiently frazzled as it was from the emotional roller coaster ride she'd been on from the second she'd opened her eyes and emitted her first blood-curdling scream of the morning. "You can't even say the word, so I'll assume you neglected to mention it to that doctor of yours..."

"I didn't think it was important," he sheepishly conceded.

"And the doctor didn't even think to ask, did he? With hundreds of women dying every year simply because they'd neglected to change their... _code word._ This is why I have a female gynecologist," she advocated.

"Geeziz, Michelle," he flinched, like someone had just accidentally staple-gunned him in the head. "Can't ya just say 'doctor'? Female 'doctor'?... I hate that word."

"Utterly, utterly hopeless," she sighed deeply, shaking her head and giving up as he stepped in and came up behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek before leaning past her to wet his face and hair. He noticed that his kiss hadn't been received with the usual level of fanfare; nor would he likely be finding himself pinned to the wall and at her mercy any time soon, he had the funniest feeling.

"I'll make this all up to you somehow, honey. Believe me," he swore on his scout's honor. "I'll let you read the Sunday fashion section first. How's that," he offered, trying to lighten her mood.

"The sacrifices you're willing to make for me... I'm touched," she grumbled. "Who was at the door?"

"No one. Just the kids messing around," he semi-truthfully replied, trading places with her long enough to quickly rub some shampoo in and out of his hair.

"So?" she asked a little self-consciously after he'd transferred her back under the warm stream of water.

"Hmm?"

"Are ya gonna tell me what I did, or are ya just gonna let me sweat it out?" she timidly inquired.

"Did when?" he played stupid, still striving to remain as deep within the vague zone as possible.

Michelle slowly turned and doe-eyed him, sending an instant pang of guilt hurtling against his conscience.

"Was I talking about anything? Did I drift off to sleep? Pass out on the floor? What?" she bravely prodded, not at all sure she was even prepared to hear the answers.

"Nah," he casually shrugged the night away, seeking to portray it, overall, as nothing particularly worthy of writing home about: hopefully even eventually boring her off the subject entirely, if there really was a God. "You were woozy. I put you to bed," he reported with technical accuracy, artfully omitting his parents' presence along with the rest of the events. "Turn around, baby," he gently coaxed her, taking the soap from her hand and rotating her by the shoulders. "Hungry?" he abruptly changed the subject with all the smoothness and suavity of a man whose hair was on fire.

"How woozy was I?" she persisted, crossing her arms and patiently allowing him the few moments of uninterrupted contemplation he pretended to need as he worked the soap around her shoulders.

"I don't know, honey," he finally said. "Woozy... Y'know, woozy like anybody else would be if they'd guzzled down a load of sedatives. That's what the stuff is designed to do, after all, isn't it?"

That was pretty vague, he had to hand to himself, skimming his soapy palms around her shoulder blades and watching the suds drizzle down and over her smooth, inviting hips, lusting for the moment when his hands would finally work their way down that far.

"On a wooze scale of one to ten..." she persevered, seriously beginning to worry why he was being so conspicuously careful with the way he crafted his answers.

"Uhh... I don't know. I'd say... well, I guess I'd say that ya started out pretty woozy at, like, maybe a six when the stuff first hit ya... probably 'cause ya hadn't eaten anything... Remember? I was just about to make ya that vegetable omelet..."

"I never got that far, I guess," she safely concluded, given how ravenously hungry she felt.

"I gave ya a couple of cookies before ya went to sleep," he responded as she turned to face him again.

"That would explain the crumbs I found in the cuffs of my nightshirt," she murmured, her brow creased with worry and her disheartened eyes awash with nagging uncertainty. "Was that doctor wearing Old Spice?" she asked. "My nightshirt smelled like Old Spice... That men's cologne from a couple of decades ago, remember?"

He stared blankly at her, not quite knowing how to dance his way around that one. Regardless of what he said or misled her to believe, the minute she met his Dad the jig would be up, no two ways about it.

"It's frightening," she quietly mentioned primarily to herself, nervously chewing on her lower lip.

"What is, baby," he asked, now feeling the guilt pangs starting to pelt his conscience's outer core with considerably greater speed and force.

"Not knowing," she responded despondently. "Missing a whole night from your life... Somebody knowing what you did and said, and you not knowing yourself... I'd prefer to know everything, no matter what, than to have to stumble around in the dark like this," she mumbled with a sigh of defeat and resignation, deciding to abandon her pursuit of answers and simply leave it at that, since questioning him further would only result in getting her nowhere just as fast as she'd gotten thus far.

Tony felt awful. Keeping things vague was a system that worked well for his Mom, perhaps, but it didn't feel right doing it with Michelle. His evasiveness wasn't sparing her feelings; it was causing her even more anguish. She appeared so lost and vulnerable and was obviously looking to him not just for clarity, but relief. Her soft, dewy eyes were asking for help; they were respectfully requesting that he be open and upfront with her and to come through for her, radiating the same level of trust in him that he had seen the other night when she'd shared her most private secrets and thoughts. They even seemed to be looking past him, into the future, searching to see if theirs would be a relationship of honesty, or one of selective, convenient truths. She was depending on him, he knew, to do the right thing by her.

It felt like a make-or-break moment; a decision on his part that would set the tone and tenor of the marriage he was hoping to enjoy for the next few decades of his life, and possibly even a few more lifetimes following.

He rubbed his forehead pensively, then his eyes, mulling the impossible damned-if-he-did, damned-if-he-didn't position he was in. Trying to spare her grief and embarrassment wasn't even an attainable goal, he realized, since Michelle was going to feel terrible no matter which way he played it.

"No, umm... no, Max wasn't wearing it," he answered in a low, somber tone, reaching around her and shutting the shower down.

She watched him step out and mindlessly extend his hand to her, engrossed in thought as he proceeded to dry them both down, switching back and forth between her and himself with mechanical, methodical sweeps of the towel.

"You were wearing it?" she quietly and rhetorically asked, though knowing that it couldn't have been him. Old Spice was too thick a scent. The bedding would have absorbed and emitted it; she would've been able to detect it in his hair earlier, too, since he self-admittedly hadn't showered between last night and up until now.

He didn't answer her right away, like his mind was preoccupied with other things, so she followed his cues in silence. Crawling back into bed minutes later, she deposited herself up against the pillows and under the covers as he slid himself into some silky white boxers he'd pulled from the dresser drawer.

"Stay there," he muttered, massaging his brow with his fingertips on his way out the bedroom door, leaving her to wonder if he planned on telling her who, then, had been sporting the aftershave if not himself or Max. She felt the ponderous grogginess suddenly sweeping over her again and struggled to keep her eyes open.

"Sit up, honey," was the next thing she heard him say, awakening to the sight of him laying glasses of juice on the nightstand alongside two mugs of steaming coffee he'd set down a minute earlier. Before the aroma of food had even registered, he was back with the same large oval platter from yesterday's breakfast. Heaped with scrambled eggs and English muffins, its presentation was more fraternity-style than family-style, with tiny salt and pepper shakers and a butter dish and other assorted items wedged in amid the food itself.

As she sat up against the pillows, he took one of them and placed it on her lap, then laid the platter on top. Stooping in with a kiss to her face, he stretched himself out on the bed, on the opposite side of their makeshift table, and propped his head up against his hand, settling in for the long haul.

"I gave you a couple of Mrs. Sanchez's cookies," he began in a low, easy voice, feeding a forkful of eggs into his mouth and gesturing with a nod of his chin for her to do the same while they were still steaming hot. "They're these giant-sized things she makes," he continued. "Only, umm... most of it ended up on the kitchen floor... in the corner, where I had you sitting against the wall... The wall with the clock..."

By the time he had polished off at least two-thirds of the platter's contents, he had told her everything.

Michelle sat frozen against the pillows, her eyes parched from not having blinked for an inordinately long period of time and feeling as though she might never blink again.

"Eat some more, baby," he encouraged her, picking up the fork she had dropped onto the plate in a moment of horror and motioning for her to take it back in her hand.

"Hugeness?" she repeated in stunned disbelief, temporarily unable to produce the power to speak above more than a whisper. "Are you sure I—?"

"Uh-huh," he gently confirmed, reaching for his coffee mug.

"That—that doesn't seem like a word I would use," she double-checked with eyes bulging and manicured eyebrows arching at an unnaturally sharp and uncomfortable-looking angle. "Are you absolutely sure I—?"

"Uh-huh," he gently repeated, surveying the remaining eggs and wondering how much he should leave for her.

She stared at him blankly, frozen in horror.

"How could you let me meet your father in that condition?" she gasped.

"Your condition was the primary reason he came over, baby. He was worried about you," he delicately explained. "Besides, I wouldn't have been able to keep him away if I tried. He's one of those take-charge kinda guys."

"What... what must he think of me?" she breathlessly fretted. 'I love your—?' Oh, my God," she moaned, covering her hot, flushed face with her hands, nearly stabbing herself in the side of her head with the fork.

"He thinks you have the skin of a china doll," Tony sympathetically assured her, pushing some eggs closer to her side of the platter. "Eat the rest of that, honey. C'mon," he implored her.

She didn't respond. She couldn't move. Her mind was racing.

"You wanted to know everything," he gently and softly reminded her, wondering if he'd made the right decision after all.

"How am I ever going to face him?... And your mother?" she despaired, her hands still covering her beet-red face. "I said 'hugeness' in front of your mother..." her voice trailed off into another mortified gasp.

"She thought you said 'cuteness,'" he soothed her, deciding to allow himself a little white half-lie after being so brutally forthcoming about every other detail. "She said—and this is a verbatim quote—she said, 'Isn't that sweet, darling? She loves his cuteness.'"

"Did she really say that?" Michelle asked hopefully, peeking out from between her fingers.

"Yes, baby," he consoled her.

"But your father. He—oh, my God, your father..." she said in a shallow whisper. "How did he react? What did he say?"

"Nothing. He was fine. He seemed kinda proud, actually," Tony couldn't help but lightly chuckle upon recalling the moment. "Thanks for the compliment, by the way," he politely added, pained to no end to see her face so blushed with embarrassment.

He lazily pushed himself up from his reclining position, took the fork from her hand and removed the pillow-table from her lap, convinced there was no way she was going to consume another bite. Placing it on the floor for the time being, he turned back and shuddered at the mist beginning to blanket her eyes.

"Ah, c'mon, honey. Please don't start that," he lightly whined, repositioning himself beside her. "See?... See, this is why I didn't want to give you all the particulars. I knew it was just gonna upset you."

"No, you made the right decision. I'd rather know than not," she said, trying to convince herself of it. "I always want you to tell me the truth... All of it. Promise me that."

"All right," he reluctantly agreed with a sigh, as if being asked to cut off his own hand. "In exchange, though, I want you to keep this all in perspective," he bargained. "I mean, it's not like my parents were shocked, or anything. It's like... well, think of it in terms of me being the one who'd gotten stoned and said something in front of your aunts, like—like, 'I love your breasts'..."

"My huuuuuuuge breasts," she said, drawing a more accurate comparison.

"Nah, it would have to be something a little more believable," he replied with a straight face and a pinched grin, hoping to get a giggle out of her, or anything even remotely resembling a smile. But she was clearly too absorbed in her thoughts and humiliation to react. "C'mon, baby, don't be upset," he gently pleaded.

"I'm not."

"Yeah, ya are," he said. "Tell me what I can do to make you feel better, huh?"

She frowned dejectedly and looked away for a moment while he patiently waited for the formula that would snap her back into her old self again.

"You can drive me over there," she answered in a small, tentative voice, peering up at him through sorrowful eyes. "I've got to... re-meet him. Now. Today. I don't want time to pass. He'll replay things in his head. People always do... And I've — I've got to apologize, so he'll at least know I'm mature and civilized and—oh, God, I can't believe I said that."

Tony's heart sank. He didn't want to go to his parents'. He wanted to spend the entire day alone with Michelle, preferably right there in bed for hour after naked hour. He wanted to cook for her and dote on her and snuggle in her arms, and her in his. With any luck at all, he'd even get her into a good enough mood to make warm, slow, gentle love to her. He wanted to share one of his forty fantasies; the one he had already gone to the trouble of cleaning up so she wouldn't think he was a sexual psycho-deviant who ought to be exiled to a deserted island for the good and safety of the general public.

"Can't ya call him instead?" he asked hopefully, assuming a wounded puppy expression — the kind he'd received numerous times throughout his life from various stray dogs in parking lots, seeking to con him into taking them home with him.

"No... no, that wouldn't be right. I should meet him face-to-face," she said, adamantly convinced of it. "I should look him in the eye."

"He really liked you, honey," Tony took another gentle stab at it. "I don't think you have to go through all that."

"I have to look him square in the eye now, or I'll never be able to, dear," she explained, knowing herself only too well.

He sighed.

"Okay... but under one condition," he acquiesced, sounding like an eighty-year-old man as he rose to his feet. "That I pick the time and the place. They probably aren't even home."

"Okay," she said with a smile. It was a small smile, but the first he'd seen on her face since she'd awoken at the top of her lungs.

She busied herself contemplating how she might reintroduce herself while Tony went off to place the call.

"Done," he announced a few minutes later, finding her sitting upright against the pillows with her arms and legs folded, chewing her lip and staring off into deep space. "Two hours, which means we have a whole hour and forty-five minutes before we have to start getting dressed," he said, nearly choking on the last few words.

"You're forgetting about the drive time," she mentioned with a stress-filled sigh, wondering if anything she could say would ultimately assure his father that she really wasn't a cheap floozy.

"Nah, they're coming here... to the scene of the crime," he replied, fumbling with the watch's tiny alarm setting.

"Honey! They shouldn't have to haul it over here!" she said in shock. "I didn't mean for them to have to go out of their way to—"

"Nah, nah. They're already out, doing the whole church and brunch thing," he eased her mind. "It's their standing date. My Dad's been taking her out every Sunday since they were married," he said, shaking his head in disbelief at how infinitesimally tiny they had made the timer and wondering what kind of guy was supposed to have hands dainty enough, or nails long enough, to actually grasp the thing.

"That's so romantic," she said, though only halfheartedly, unable to shake the embarrassment and anxiety eating away at her. She watched him growing seriously annoyed with the timepiece. "Give," she directed with her hand out to him.

He gladly relieved himself of the task, dropping the watch into her palm and himself facedown on the bed, making a pillow of her lap.

"Tell me what I can do to cheer you up. C'mon, baby," he pleaded with her, draping his arms across her body.

"Nothing, dear. I'm fine. Really... I'll be fine," she promised, unconvincingly.

"Yeah, only I want you to be fine now," he mildly sulked, holding up his wrist when it came time for her to reattach the band. "How 'bout I let ya go snooping for, say... fifteen minutes. Any room or closets or drawers. You enjoy that, honey," he reminded her.

"Maybe later," she sighed, sharply elevating his concern levels.

"Thirty minutes," he more than generously doubled the deal, shocked that she wasn't already down the hall tearing his office apart. "It's a one-time offer," he added to the temptation. "Now or never. Take it or leave it."

"I think I'll pass, in that case, dear. I'm still a little tired," she moped.

His head lifted from her lap just enough for his jaw to drop like a rock.

"Okay, well... I guess I didn't realize it 'til now, but... I can see I'm gonna have to get serious about this," he mumbled as he pushed himself onto his feet again.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Hang on," he murmured in a determined tone, disappearing for a minute and returning with his checkbook and a pen.

"You're gonna pay me to cheer up?" she eyed him with disbelief as he sat himself beside her, spending a moment to settle in comfortably against the pillows. He ignored her question and opened his checkbook, gazing off in deep thought for a few seconds, pondering the numerics and nodding in agreement with himself as he put pen to paper and began to write. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Okay," he said after scribbling his signature and tearing the check free from its binding. "This oughta brighten your day," he confidently added, holding it out to her.

She stared at him as if he were insane.

"Go on. Take it... You're worth it," he enticed, moving the check closer to her hand.

She frowned and took it from him, then rolled onto her back and held it above her head.

"Pay to the order of Michelle Dessler," she cautiously read aloud. "One hundred kisses and... zero-zero cents..."

She turned her head to the side and stared at the smirk on his face for a brief flash before bursting into laughter, much to his delight and relief, compelling him to take a moment to silently commend his ingenious self.

"A hundred kisses don't quite cut it for ya, I take it," he mock-defensively responded to her laughter, feigning mortal insult, like a rejected groom who'd shed his clothes on his honeymoon night only to have his disappointed bride declare that the marriage was over. "Fine, fine. Not a problem," he huffed indignantly beneath his breath, opening the checkbook and busying himself with another.

"What's this here?" Michelle cackled, peering through tears of laughter at the upper-right section of her payoff.

"What..."

"Here... This... Where the dollar amount is supposed to be. It's a drawing of something."

"Where?" he said with miff saturating his tone, faking annoyance at having his thoughts interrupted as he impatiently glanced over to where she was pointing. "That's my lips," he announced, prompting another blast of unbridled laughter from her, half of which came snorting out of her nose this time.

"Have you ever thought about taking that 'Draw Sparky' test ya see on matchbook covers?" she cackled harder.

"I don't smoke, Michelle," he curtly reminded her, feigning irritability over the razzing she was delighting in giving him.

"Yeah? You should see yourself after sex," she quipped, laughing hard at her own joke while Tony struggled to maintain a straight face.

As he scribbled out his next offering, she crawled over and nosily leaned against his arm, hoping to steal a peek, but he elbowed her head away.

"Back off, woman," he warned in a rankled manner, sparking another round of melodious giggles. After a few moments, he tore the check from the book and handed it over. "There... Try resisting that," he confidently challenged, watching as she eagerly sat up to read.

"Pay to the order of Michelle Dessler... one hour and... one... one Tarzan costume..." she blurted out in a gale of laughter as the mental vision of him in a leopard loincloth flashed through her head.

"And?"

"... and... and twenty-five cents," she cried, holding the check to her stomach as she howled. Her contagious laughter forced him to bite the insides of his cheeks in an effort to maintain his straight-laced, mortally insulted persona, waiting until her laughing jag had finally dissolved into tear-wiping and runny nose-sniffling. "What's the quarter for?" she tried to inquire without losing it again, wiping her tear-stained cheeks with the heels of her hands, trying not to get her checks wet in the process.

"Knowing you, you'll insist upon flipping a coin to see which one of us wears it," he clarified cheerlessly, watching her collapse onto her side in a heap.

"No Jane costume?" she cried amid her gut-heaving.

"No way in hell," he firmly stated, drawing the line. "I'll be the one who ends up in it. I can just see it," he brooded, working to hold back laughter at the sight of her clutching her sides in the fetal position, curls splayed and jiggling in rhythm and sync with the rest of her body.

He facetiously sighed, deeply and impatiently, while she labored to compose herself, witlessly feeling around in the crumpled blanket for the checks that had tumbled from her hands at some point during her breakdown.

"What else do I get?" she excitedly begged to know, crawling over to his side and leaning her head in to wipe her eyes on a leg of his boxers.

"More?" he gawked incredulously, shaking his head in fabricated disbelief. "God, you're expensive," he muttered to himself, opening his checkbook again.

"This is the price you pay for not taking better care of me," she was sorry to inform him.

"I'll take care of you, all right," he grumbled under his breath, finding himself breaking character and chuckling a moment later when she returned to his side and wiped her damp nose on his boxers this time.

"Where do I go to cash these, by the way?" she inquired after he had "eeew-ed" and pushed her head away, muttering something about a piglet and ordering her to get away from him.

"The Bank of Almeida will be opening shortly," he testily informed her, resuming the tone of an irritated branch manager in high-priss mode.

"I see," she played along, loving his game, and especially her role as the pesky customer from hell. "Can I mix and match them if I want?" she annoyed him.

"I running a bank here, not a Chinese restaurant," he tartly responded. "You don't get to pick and choose from column-A and column-B with legal tender, Michelle..."

"Why can't I cash this one in for the full Tarzan costume, but only half the kisses with this one for now, and then open up a—?"

_"Shhhh,"_ he loudly hissed as though her incessant chattering were completely destroying his concentration.

"You're using up all your checks, y'know," she pragmatically pointed out to him, sprawling out on her side while she impatiently waited for him to finish.

"So what. I have more," he mumbled into space, chewing the cap of his pen while formulating the proper verbiage.

She quietly and excitedly watched as he finally finished his signature, tore the check free, and handed it over to her, sitting back with arms crossed and a proud smirk brandished across his face.

"Pay to the order of Michelle Dessler, one..."

She abruptly halted and inhaled sharply, her mouth dropping open and eyes doubling in size as her head snapped up in his direction.

"You are so fresh!" she squealed, cheeks reddening as she lurched forward to mount a punishing tickle attack upon his ribcage. But before her wriggling fingers could land their first assaultive round, he handily tossed her onto her back in one smooth swoop, applying pressure with his chest to hold her in place.

"Yes, I know," he agreed with a roguish smirk, feeling his own cheeks on the verge of breaking into a blush. "You love it," he seductively reminded her in a gruff whisper, calling her bluff of modesty.

"You are going straight to hell someday, mister," she guaranteed him in the midst of a fresh giggling fit, squirming under the weight of his silky chest. She stealthily moved her fingers in for another surprise assault upon his ultra-ticklish ribs, but he foiled her plans once again, catching and pinning her wrists gently against the mattress.

"Yeah, with you right behind me," he hated to have to tell her, his mouth proceeding to have its way with whatever happened to strike his fancy within nibbling distance. Between the taste of her warm skin and the sensation of her body wriggling and giggling beneath him, he felt his excitement level already straining the limits.

"Don't make me scan that check and send it out inter-agency," she threatened as she struggled, though not very hard at all, to free herself from his immobilizing grip.

"Gee, don't do that," he flippantly pleaded with cocky sarcasm, pausing momentarily from feasting at one of his favorite hotspots. "Every eligible babe in the place will be beatin' my door down. And then what would I do."

"In your dreams," she managed to chuckle her assurances before his mouth had sealed itself over hers, muffling out her words and ensuing series of shallow moans.

She plotted her retaliation strike, launching with a taunting tongue, though not really perpetrating any significant damage until she had succeeded in wrestling her lips free long enough to whisper something into his ear that sent an unanticipated surge roaring through his system at a speed that caused his body to jolt from the zing.

"Geeziz, baby," he moaned in an odd mixture of stunned pleasure, sheer pain, and undying gratitude for the way her wicked mind worked, then conducted a quick assessment of damages sustained from the bunker-bombing she'd so neatly and pin-pointedly blindsided him with. For one thing, his brain was partially paralyzed; for another, he was already strongly considering a short respite, feeling the serious need for time out to recover and regroup from the image her words had branded into his mind "And I'm supposed to be the fresh one, huh?" he euphorically double-checked, his own commentary muffled this time as her lips voluntarily surrendered themselves back into the custody of his warm mouth, leaving her shameless words to clang around inside his ear.

She giggled softly and proudly at the effects of her evil handiwork, seizing the perfect opportunity to slip her wrists from his grip while he languished in a weakened state, his brain reeling and his guard still down.

"You don't know what you do to me, woman," he groaned in pain, laying his head against hers and succumbing to the intoxicating sensation of her busy fingertips now torturously taking their sweet time inching his boxers downward.

When her hands extended their full reach, the satiny bottom of her foot took over, sliding up along his leg, her toes then cleverly catching hold and escorting them to their final destination just slightly north of his shins.

"You're so talented," he lethargically lifted his head and crooned into her eyes with a soft chuckle, amused by her beaming expression of self-pride.

Kicking his boxers off the rest of the way, he collapsed his head against her shoulder, dreamily shuddering from the thrilling sensation of her nails swirling lazily around his lower back. They gently scratched and scraped along, eventually parting company, with one hand heading east and the other west to explore the smooth, firm terrain before meeting up again south of his tan line, drinking in the shape and sinew of each hill, crest, and valley they passed along the way.

He silently lauded her ability to cause his temperature to rise and his skin to glisten with such stunning expediency, efficiency and effectiveness. He marveled in her sensuousness and sexual confidence, too; in how breezily and brazenly she would simply assume ownership of whatever happened to interest, intrigue, or amuse her at any given moment; wantonly using him however she pleased, for whatever she wished, and in whatever function, capacity, or fashion — unabashedly and without compunction, fear, consent, or a second thought — relegating him to spectator status until her curiosity had been satisfied, or her goal achieved, and his parts and services were no longer required.

He equally marveled in her control of his emotions and movements. She had a way of pulling his strings, judiciously and teasingly withholding certain things from him at certain critical points and junctures, then playfully dangling them, like sexual carrots, making him that much more desirous of what he couldn't immediately have. She thrilled his senses and manipulated his mind into wanting to strain his body harder and longer to please her; to sweat for her; to earn her.

Nostrils tingled from the intoxicating aroma of his own thick body scents beginning to blend with hers, creating a whole other separate and unique fragrance that he adored. It was neither his nor hers, but theirs, and hung in the air, permeating the pores of their skin and everything surrounding them.

Sighing deeply and serenely, he propped himself up on his elbows and lifted her head just enough to fill his hands with her curls. Leaning his lips against her ear, he tried to tell her how much he loved her and how exquisite she made him feel, frustrated by the lack of words in the English language sufficient to describe the scope and depth and magnitude of the passion she produced in him. She solicited responses and effectuated results that no other woman had ever even sought out before, much less attained from him. He groped for a way to articulate how her sultry playfulness and creativity could have him chuckling in one breath and leave him trembling in the next, and how mystified he was by the ease and speed with which he'd find himself moaning her name repeatedly and seemingly at her will. But he had no idea how to even begin to transcribe those feelings into words.

Fortunately for him, she seemed to identify with his verbalization frustration only too well, taking little time to propose a perfect alternative to trying to tell her how he felt.

"Show me," she purred with reanimated fingers, and hands slowly descending between their bodies, neatly collapsing his elbows and brain out from under him.


	16. Her Reintroduction

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 16: Her Reintroductio_n

Adrenaline and testosterone steadily picked up speed and pounded harder through his system, almost to the point of ringing in his ears, as playful hands slowly continued downward between them, one taking possession of him while the other gently nudged his chest away from hers. His brain collided with the inside of his skull; he knew what she was seeking and eagerly obliged.

Beads of sweat wasted no time in assembling across his brow, one breaking ranks and dripping down, crash-landing against smooth, alabaster skin. He hovered motionlessly above her, muscles straining to keep himself balanced and steady for her. He gazed quietly, mesmerized by her busy fingers manipulating his body, like a surrogate toy, against herself. As she diligently worked to elevate her excitement level, his own consequently rocketed into deep space, creating a sudden epiphanic realization of what the expression "seeing stars" really meant.

His chest heaved deeply and rhythmically, intent upon saturating his straining lungs with mass quantities of much-appreciated oxygen. Every muscle, from his biceps to his knees, joined forces to hold him steady and still while she lost herself in the explosive sensations his body was manufacturing for her. The soft moans that poured from her lips, in combination with the warm, trembling grip she had on him, threatened to ignite the short fuse on the volatile fluids warehoused inside, which felt like they had already built to full capacity and were now patiently lying in wait, hungering for release. But he still had such a long, long way he wanted to go, he knew, before reaching that jumping-off point.

"Feel good, baby?" he asked in a low, timid whisper, a distinct tremble oscillating in his voice and giving his awe and excitement away.

He wallowed in her reply: her breathless description of the exquisite feelings his body was creating for her; the subsequent thoughts they provoked; the visuals that materialized in her mind. She spoke through heavy slits and glassy eyes in a rhapsodic voice, uninhibitedly and generously and between shallow breaths, surprising and thrilling him with things she would never otherwise say beyond the borders of their bed.

He watched her eyes close as she spiraled back into the abyss, her thoughts guided by his soft commentary and words of encouragement, gently and sensuously coaxing her sensations and emotions along, upward, onto higher ground. He knew the things that excited her; the words that she liked to hear spill from him at peak moments; the voice level she reacted to best; the sentiments that made her respond in gasps; the expressions she liked to catch on his face when her glazed eyes stole peeks at him.

Her lids opened just enough for her eyes to latch onto his again, driving his temperature up another notch as she softly giggled an acknowledgement with her eyes that he was equally in control of her as she was in him, and without him even using his hands to arrest her senses. His brain ached as she glided and swirled him against the spots that made her muscles clench and her body lurch in response, illustrating and proving the point that her eyes had just articulated.

Tony felt the fever rise again: there was something extra exhilarating about sensations being created by his own body, but neither orchestrated nor executed by him; rather, produced at the hand and discretion of the driver who'd seized his vehicle — or to whom he'd eagerly surrendered the keys — and was now commandeering him on every level, from the physical to the intangible.

He eased himself down onto his elbows to allow his forearms to assume the task of absorbing his upper body weight for awhile, giving his biceps and shoulders a necessary rest. He gasped at the unexpected sensation of her fingers reorienting themselves to the newfound pitch and angle of his body. He arched his back ever so slightly to give himself a better view of what her greedy little fingers were up to now: feeling and grasping and smoothing along him, electrifying already-raw nerve endings.

His knees moved a bit, in opposite directions, and dug into the mattress a little deeper, giving himself more leverage, stability, and better distribution of his weight while simultaneously eliciting a shallow whimper from her lips in reaction to the stabs his movements had concurrently sent to her straining thighs.

His chest and back heaved, fighting to maintain a smooth and even airflow as she released her hold and guided his hand to where hers had been, gently wrapping his fingers around himself, then hers on top, surrounding his.

"Geez... baby..." he moaned softly, almost drunkenly, in elated surprise at her unexpected decision that it was his turn to drive for awhile; that she wanted to take a break to rest, but without breaking the momentum of the steady, methodical buildup of excitement that presently swept in waves throughout her. He peered downward through hazy eyes as she coaxed him closer and snugger against herself, setting to motion the slow, erotic, rhythm and pace she loved, then lying back to enjoy the ride.

"I can read your mind. You've been dying to take over," she seductively hit it on the head in a soft whisper, her impish grin illuminated with self-pride in not only her instinctual sense of the things he liked, but her perfect timing, as well.

"You've been dying to feel the rush you get when I do," he busted her back, panting with a soft, seductive grin and applying a little more pressure to punctuate his point.

Her body tensed and jolted in response to his series of smooth swerves and turns and overall handling of the slippery road. With a soft chuckle, he returned her toy to her when her brattish hands greedily wrestled him for control again, inadvertently accelerating his excitement level to an unacceptably dangerous speed that had quickly steered him way too close to the edge of the cliff. He reached down to gently unhand her before it was too late, having to softly argue and pry a few fingers loose before lowering his full body on top of hers.

His head dropped down alongside hers and he closed his eyes. He needed to rest and collect himself; to assign his mind to other things for just a brief few moments. He thought about the guy who'd originally coined "seeing stars" and wondered how many centuries ago the phrase had been born, deciding that the guy had likely been Adam upon jumping Eve's bones in the Garden of Eden before they'd ultimately gotten themselves thrown out for lewd and lascivious conduct, among other ungodly violations.

"Hold me, baby," he directed her in the midst of a deep, euphoric sigh, suddenly experiencing another out-of-the-blue reality flash that this was all actually happening, and needing to feel himself in her possession. The emotions saturating his every molecule were mutual and thrilling and more than ample in quantity and quality to fill a lifetime or two, or three, or twelve — a startling reality that he still found difficult to believe and reckon with.

After lying quietly and asthmatically together for a few soul-fortifying minutes, he felt her magical hands on the move again: fingertips swirling soft circles around his shoulders and into the crook of his back. He kissed his way gently around her face and neck between deep breaths and shameless thoughts. His hand filled itself with silky flesh, the peak of which slid between his fingers and skimmed his palm, tickling his skin. He burrowed in, tighter and tenser; his tongue slid between her lips and feasted with force, breaking away sporadically to beg her not to stop what she had begun doing to him in the new playground her hands had found for themselves.

Oh, God. He was so ready. He needed in, he knew. Badly. Urgently. Now. Taking it upon himself to personally throw the estrogen goddesses out on their heads, he grumbled impatiently while Michelle took precautions to protect the mattress from likely ruination, cursing her tidiness gene to hell and damnation under his breath.

Finally inside his arms, he entered her with a fury, holding her tightly and crashing against her, outside and in, listening to involuntary whimpers depart from his throat as she cried out loudly in a mixture of surprise and ecstasy in sync with the blunt force of his movements.

"Honey..." she gasped hard, clinging to him with nails dragging and digging sharply into his skin, trying to speak but unable to cohesively pull her words together. But he knew what she wanted and was already actively on the case.

"Yes, baby, I know," he panted hard, maintaining the fury, force, and depth of his thrusts at the expense of his sanity.

One arm tightened around her body; his hand cupping the back of her head closed around a fistful of curls and tugged her hair to tip her head back from his chest. Her face glistened with sweat. Damp, matted curls framed her flushed complexion. He saw her eyes creep open just enough to fixate on his, wincing in rhythm with his forceful stabs. The small, barely discernible punch-drunk smile he loved materialized in the corners of her mouth.

He knew where her mind and body were, just baby steps behind his own. Her muscles were flinching against him. He could feel her steadily climbing. He modified his speed, but not his force, injecting the subtlest circular motions into his hips with each crash he landed against her.

"That's it, baby..." he gently whispered, watching her face begin to contort and feeling her muscles twitch in his arms. "That's my girl," he softly coaxed her onward and upward, gripping her hair tighter and kissing her face, feeling his muscles clenching and straining hard to hold back the river of fire burning out of control inside him.

"Honey—" she panted in a shallow, quavering voice.

"I know, baby," he smiled, reading her emotions like a book printed in billboard-sized type; reading her body even easier, from the telltale signs of her sporadic grips.

"Honey... I'm..."

Hollow, gasping moans muffled and extinguished her own words. He groaned hard in response, feeling at the point of physical pain and not daring to accelerate his speed to the level his mind ached for.

"I know, baby, you're almost there," he whispered gently through what little breath he had left in his lungs, softly coaxing and luring her closer to the edge. "God, baby, I'm — I'm dying to feel you..."

Her timing was his salvation. There wasn't another word he could've gotten out of his mouth, or at least not softly or calmly, as he felt her beginning to wrench in his arms, instantly kicking his body into high speed. His hand pulled back on her hair, his lips in frantic search of hers. His mouth clamped down but wouldn't seal. His face muscles were no longer cooperating or taking commands; his brain was no longer issuing them, having seemingly come to a frozen standstill. Her body began buckling hard. Her throaty cries were all around him. He slammed hard and deep and uncontrollably as blackness overtook him for a flash before all he could see was stars.

"God," he moaned for about the eightieth time after what felt like an hour of crushing her beneath him with the full weight of his lifeless body, but finally feeling strong enough to at least lift his head enough to see if she was still alive.

"Invoking the name of the Lord at a time like this," she weezed for air. "That's gotta be a sin of some kind," she assured him as he kissed her damp face as best he could with partially paralyzed lips before somehow managing to relocate himself facedown beside her. His arms moved up to wrap themselves around the pillow that his head had since collapsed into. It wasn't the best position for breathing, but there was little he could do about it.

"Do you think we can get through one quick shower?" Michelle asked with a sigh of relief as she began ingesting oxygen at a normal human rate again. "Y'know, just soaping up and rinsing off, like the rest of the world does?"

"My faucets are drained, baby," he panted into the pillow with a broad smile and sealed eyes, "so I wouldn't worry too much about it. We may —we may have to do a bath, in fact. I'm not so sure I can stand."

Michelle wanted to lie there in bliss as badly as he, but the alarm on his watch sounded. He ignored it, forcing her to have to prop herself up and search for his wrist beneath his pillow.

"Yeah, well, you'd better start doing some warm-ups, in that case," she groaned as she dragged herself to her feet, determined to get herself into gear with only a scant fifteen minutes to pull herself together. "We're into overtime, dear," she reminded him.

"That's your fault," he smiled dreamily, burrowing his face a little deeper into the pillow and luxuriating in the extreme comfort that blanketed him, head to toe. "I was at the goal post five minutes before you finally decided to make an appearance," he teased her.

"Yes, well, regardless," she said, nudging him to get himself into action, to absolutely no avail, "that doorbell's gonna be ringing a mere fourteen minutes from now."

"Twenty-nine. Minimum," he corrected her, still dreamily hugging his pillow and refusing to budge despite the tingling sensation resonating from the light encouragement she'd just delivered to his haunch. "My Mom's never been on time for a thing in her life. Not even Olivia's birth," he reminded her of his sister's celebrated entry into the world via the backseat of a limousine, which had nearly given Lou a heart attack upon realizing that obstetrics services had suddenly been added to his job description, with no prior warning or notice.

"Get moving, mister," Michelle grumbled, heading for the bathroom to get the shower started. Reluctantly, he pushed himself up with his hands and onto his feet, knowing how nervous and anxious she was about making a good second impression on his Dad and not wanting to upset her any more than she was already hard at work doing herself.

He tried to keep the mood cheery and light throughout the tedious regimen of showering, shaving and dressing, finally giving up as he watched her fuss nervously with her hair. He could feel her body trembling a little as he buttoned up the back of her dress and tried to assure her, yet again, that everything was going to be just fine, but he knew she was only processing every couple of words he said.

"We should make some fresh coffee," she anxiously suggested.

"I'll do it," he volunteered, sliding into a clean pair of jeans.

"I'll get the stuff out for you," she nervously offered, heading toward the bedroom door.

"No, I'll — Okay, honey," he responded, figuring it was probably best for her to focus her mind on anything other than the rehabilitation speech he knew she was rehearsing in her head, even if her mental break was only for a minute or two. He smiled to himself, charmed and even complimented by how important she felt it was to ingratiate herself with his Dad, and how determined she was to make a proper presentation this time around.

"HON_-eeeeeeey!"_ Michelle's voice shrilly screeched out from the living room at volume and pitch levels nearly as high as the screams she had earlier awoken to. Tony suddenly found himself flying up the hallway. Every hair on his body was standing at full attention, reminiscent of the way he often arose back in boot camp when his Drill Sergeant would frequently welcome recruits to the dawn of a glorious new day by exploding a hand grenade a short distance from the barracks.

"Oh, my _God!"_ her voice shreiked again, equally as loudly and elevated in octave as he skidded around the hallway corner, nearly overshooting it from the speed at which he'd made his approach. "You didn't have to do this!" she breathlessly squealed, completely awestruck, overwhelmed, and visibly pale with surprise over the dozen rare pink roses she cradled in her arms. "That was so _sweeeeeeeeet_ of you!"

"Uhhh..."

"Pink Albas? How did you even know they were my favorite?" she prattled on in a state of blissful glee, feeling her heart beating so hard with excitement that she thought it might burst at the seams if she didn't calm herself down soon. _"Please_ tell me you didn't call and ask my aunts. Oh, my God. 'Belle Amour,'" she gushed, tenderly annunciating the formal name of her favorite roses.

"I love you, too, baby, but look, umm..."

"They must have cost a fortune this time of year!"

"Uhh... honey?" he nervously sputtered, his stomach turning with the realization that he was going to have to break yet another difficult truth to her, and only minutes before his parents would be walking through the door. He wondered for a fleeting moment if it wouldn't have been a better idea to have just cut his hand off instead of agreeing, like an idiot, to always tell her the truth.

"You shouldn't have," she turned and mock-scolded with a chastising frown of disapproval.

"Sweetheart, I, uhh... Actually, I didn't... "

Michelle blinked and shook her head a little, not quite sure she understood what he was trying to say and wondering if she had even heard him correctly.

"You didn't what, dear," she softly inquired, feeling somewhat confused upon reading his face and particularly interested in knowing the source of the guilt that oozed from his eyes.

"They're, umm... Well, y'see, they're not exactly... How do I put this..."

"Not exactly... for _me?"_ she hesitantly helped him out in a small, timorous voice, her tone underscored by the horror that suddenly gripped her in the gut, fearing she had just foolishly and mistakenly opened a box of flowers he had actually ordered for someone else; like, his mother, for whatever reason or occasion; or Mrs. Sanchez, who might've forgotten to take them, given the scuffle that appeared to be going on in the living room as they had been preparing to make their departure. She suddenly felt a little dizzy.

"No, no, no... They're yours, honey," Tony quickly endeavored to set at least that much of the record straight. "Only, y'see, uhh..."

Now she was thoroughly confused. He was right: they were intended for her, she knew. She distinctly recalled the card having clearly said "baby" and "all my love," neither sentiment of which would seem to apply to either his housekeeper or mother.

Tony stared as she quickly rummaged around for the card, shaking her head in befuddlement. How many times in one day was he expected to disappoint her, for cryssake, he thought with a deep sigh, turning and moving toward the kitchen with his fingertips clawing his brow in frustration.

"Y'know, I hate this promise ya made me make, Michelle," he whined in annoyance as she laid the roses back in the box and crossed her arms, patiently awaiting his explanation with a stern frown dug firmly into her brow.

Stooped over with his head buried in the refrigerator, Tony took an unusually long time to decide between the milk and the grape juice, finally settling on the milk; then buying more time for himself gesturing with the bottle to ask if Michelle wanted any. He heard her sigh again, as though quickly running out of patience, while he took another excessively long chunk of time to slowly pour the milk into the glass, using the precious remaining seconds to calm himself and gather his thoughts.

Between gulps of cold milk that nearly gave him a brain-freeze, like frozen Margaritas were notorious for doing, he explained to her that his Dad had actually sent them, feeling that he himself would be too up to his ears in trying to explain and atone for the barbiturate cocktail he'd inadvertently served her last night. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when Michelle simply shook her head at the end of his babbling explanation and dismissed the matter entirely, commenting that the gesture had been made with good faith and intentions, then reiterating how gorgeous the roses were.

"No one called your aunts, either, y'know. My Dad's just psychic," Tony grinned, still beaming with elation at having been let off the hook so quickly and easily and seriously considering celebrating with another glass of milk, only this time going to hell with himself with a ton of chocolate syrup stirred into it.

"Well, however they got here, they're lovely," Michelle smiled, standing over the box and caressing the delicate, fragrant petals, charmed and intrigued by the notion of a Dad going out of his way to do such a sweet and considerate thing like that for his son.

Having lost her own parents when she was an infant, she'd always been intrigued by the interrelations that classically transpired among members of traditional family units: stable households headed by happily married parental figures with an average of 2.2 offspring. But her thoughts were quickly brought to a sudden gut-punching halt at the dreaded sound of the doorbell.

Michelle felt her breath catch, not even cognizent of her feet having taken a few automatic steps backward, therein creating more distance between herself and door.

"Everything will be fine, baby," Tony gently reassured her over his shoulder as he flipped the bolt and reached for the knob.

"Darling!" his Mom's voice merrily echoed in from the hallway.

"We're only here for a minute, chief," his Dad's voice took up the rear as his parents made their usual cheery entrance into the apartment. "I hear some lovely china doll is under the absurd impression that she owes an apology," Jim Almeida said, kissing his son's cheek, then turning slowly and arching an eyebrow directly at Michelle. "Come here, young lady. None of this nonsense, hmm?" he mock-sternly ordered, extending an inviting arm out to her and chuckling to himself as he studied the blushed, wide-eyed and timid expression that had instantaneously washed across the beauty's face.

All the words Michelle had rehearsed up to that point suddenly flew out the window as her feet began transporting her across the floor on their own volition. She felt herself instantly drawn, like a magnet, into the strong, Old Spice-saturated arm that proceeded to promptly and gently swallow her into a warm, full embrace.

Tony beamed at the sight, suddenly reminded that Michelle had never known the experience of growing up with a father, much less one as fraternal, mesmeric, and gentlemanly as his own, and felt grateful that — with luck, and the gods on his side — she would soon be inheriting Jim Almeida, the first father she would ever officially know.

"Mr. Almeida, about last night," Michelle offered in a timid, somewhat quavering voice, but directly and determinedly into his eyes, "I really am just so terribly sorry about—"

"The only one who need apologize around here is Mrs. Almeida," Jim softly but firmly cut her off with a reassuring squeeze, arching an eyebrow toward his wife. "Isn't that right, sweetheart?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Amanda flittered repentantly, wrestling Michelle from her husband's embrace and taking her into her delicate arms, maternally fussing and rearranging the curls that framed her lightly blushed face, just as her hairdresser Jose would do to everyone in the room if he were there. "I couldn't sleep a wink all night, darling. I can't tell you how upset and remorseful I am about what happened. Really, I had no idea Joyce was back on those wretched downs again."

Jim Almeida quietly and disapprovingly frowned in response to Amanda's knowledge and use of the common street vernacular for barbiturates.

"Can you ever forgive me, darling?" Amanda moaned apologetically as Michelle assured her with an affirmative nod, reluctantly releasing her after her husband had stepped up and gently pried her hands off her hostage.

Amanda moved on to her son and kissed his face, then launched into feigning complete and utter surprise at the sight of the pink roses that had peripherally caught her eye. She rushed over and gathered them up, surveying and fussing over each blossom as though they'd been tipped in gold.

_"Ohhhhhhhhh,_ aren't these simply _lovely!"_ she chirped breathlessly with the pure, unadulterated astonishment of an Oscar award-winner wannabe. "Are these for _Michelle?"_ she over-dramatically cooed. "How perfectly thoughtful of you, darling!" she complimented her son.

"She knows, Mom," Tony informed her, shaking his head.

"Oh," Amanda replied, her squeal instantly dropping to normal speaking levels. "I'll just put them in water, in that case," she regrouped on the spot, like a seasoned combat soldier accustomed to taking a bullet every now again and brushing it off as nothing more than all part of the job.

As she took a step toward the kitchen in search of the crystal vase she had given her son years ago as a housewarming gift, Tony caught her by the forearm and brought her over to him.

"Thank you, by the way," he added with a warm smile, laced with remnants of the chuckle he'd just enjoyed at her expense.

Amanda was shocked into momentary speechlessness as her son freed her hands of the flowers and drew her in for a wholly unexpected hug.

"For what?" Amanda asked in astonishment.

"I dunno, Ma," he said, just feeling like holding her for minute, given how long he realized it had been since the last time. "For placing the call. Your ribbons always give ya away, y'know," he informed her with a light peck to the side of her head, catching a glance of his Dad, whose face was sporting a small, satisfied grin, pleased that their conversation last night had apparently made an impact to some degree.

"My God, he's still growing," Amanda moaned aloud to herself, suddenly noticing a height difference that didn't seem to be there the last time she had clandestinely sized him up.

"You're wearing flat shoes, Ma," Tony said, comically rolling his eyes at his Dad and Michelle.

His Mom's hands began lovingly swirling around his body in her usual, casual, stealthy attempt to check for weight loss or whatever other physical abnormalities he might be trying to hide from her. He shook his head in amusement, but graciously and cooperatively endured the maternal frisk his Mom had been subjecting him to since the day he had moved out of the nest.

As Amanda completed her inspection, her hand moved on to fondly pat the back pocket of his jeans. Jim Almeida used his eyes to razz his son from across the room, then gave Michelle's shoulder a squeeze and chuckled under his breath when she giggled heartily at the sight of Tony's pained expression, his eyes arched to the heavens as if begging to know "Why me?"

"This used to be all mine at one time," Amanda sentimentally despaired, fondly patting her former baby's derriere with a deep sigh of melancholy while Tony's eyes suggested to his Dad that now might be a good time to break out the violin. "I used to take such good care of it, too. Never a rash. Not one. I could've won a prize. A blue ribbon. I'm quite sure of it," she couldn't help but boast in retrospect. "Isn't that right, darling?" she checked with her husband.

"I lived in constant fear of the Smithsonian seizing him for us, sweetheart," Jim Almeida dryly assured his terminally maternal wife as Tony struggled not to laugh, parking his chin lightly against the top of his Mom's head while he patiently awaited the end of her sentimental family reunion with his butt. "Your body is never your own, you know, if Amanda Almeida's played any role in either creating it or curing it," Jim glanced down at Michelle's beaming face and warned her with a light kiss against her forehead, touched to unexpectedly receive a timid peck against his cheek in return. "If you're ever down with the flu, you'll be wise not to open the door to her," he sagely advised.

"Oh, for goodness sake, darling. You make it seem as though I'm the only mother in the world concerned about her grown child," Amanda complained. "I'm sure Mrs. Dessler fusses just as much over her daughter," she stated with confidence as Tony ushered her over to his Dad and traded her in for Michelle. "Isn't that right, darling," she looked to Michelle for confirmation.

"Oh, uhh... I... I guess she would if she, umm..." Michelle sputtered a little bashfully, the question having taken her by surprise.

"Michelle didn't know her mother, Ma. Her parents died in an accident when she was an infant," Tony matter-of-factly inserted.

Amanda stared at him in shock for a moment, then at the precious, innocent, porcelain face of her future daughter-in-law, then promptly exploded into tears.

Jim Almeida's chin slowly dropped down to his chest and sat there for a beat before his eyes arched upward at his son. Sliding his hand out of his pocket almost automatically, he extended it in the direction of his inconsolably sobbing wife.

"Good work, there, chief," he dryly congratulated, robotically drawing Amanda into a soothing embrace, his eyes remaining locked firmly on his mystified son.

Tony stared speechlessly as his Dad's eyebrow arched upward as if to inquire if he now planned on coming along to comfort his mother every time she sporadically broke into tears throughout the rest of the day; or if he figured he'd just leave that task to his Dad. Tony responded with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, accompanied by a telepathic, wide-eyed, "What did I do?"

"It's all right, Mrs. Almeida, really," Michelle semi-frantically swore on her honor. "My two aunts raised me. I had a wonderful childhood," she attested, taking a moment to turn and shoot a chastising frown at the oaf who'd made his mother cry.

"She was gonna find out at some point," Tony said in defense of himself, with the same wide-eyed, mystified shrug he'd given his Dad.

"There, there, sweetheart," Jim consoled Amanda, prying her arms off Michelle, whom he comforted with a warm smile. "Mrs. Almeida was born with an over-active maternal gene, is all," he explained with a wink before motioning his son with a nod of the chin to get the door.

Tony snapped into action, holding it open as Amanda sniffled condolences to Michelle for her tragic loss.

"She's fine, Ma," he said in a pleading, apologetic voice. "It was a long time ago. She was just a baby. She doesn't even remember her Mom."

Amanda's sniffles instantly transformed into a fresh new round of inconsolable sobs against her husband's chest.

"It's just so sad," she wept. "Torn from the arms of her loving mother at such a tragically young age — only an infant, darling!"

"Thanks for everything, chief," Jim dryly dead-eyed his son again before easing Amanda toward the door. He motioned Tony to lean in for a kiss, then turned to Michelle who stood a few steps off to the side, nervously wringing her hands and feeling responsible for Amanda's present emotional state.

"You," Jim said in a low, though firm, voice and a finger aiming in Michelle's direction. "I want to see you at the dinner table some time this week," he ordered, patiently waiting as she made her approach with a bashful smile and drawing her in for a farewell hug. "This one will forget," he referenced Tony with a nod of his chin, "so I'm leaving it to you to set an evening aside with Mrs. Almeida, understood?"

"Yes, sir," Michelle grinned shyly, but in sheer delight, suddenly feeling a thousand times less guilty and responsible for the condition of the woman sniffling in the arms of the warmest, kindest, most charming, charismatic, and best-smelling man she believed she had ever met in her life.

As Tony came up alongside her and re-tucked her under his arm, she slid hers around his waist and gave him an overly animated squeeze as if to signal to her future father-in-law that he didn't have to worry: that she already had things well under control.

"Come along, sweetheart," Jim Almeida gently implored his sniffling better half. "I'm taking you to a place where they have these things called 'cows' grazing in what's known as a 'meadow," he wryly ribbed her on their way through the door, grinning at the "tsk" he received in response.

As the door closed behind his parents, Tony let out a sigh of relief, more than pleased with how well Michelle's reintroduction had gone.

"Could you _be _any more insensitive?" she immediately turned and barked at him.

"What did I do?" he begged to know, suddenly riddled with guilt again as he followed her into the bedroom.

Women, he thought to himself. They were like pipes, just waiting to have the slightest amount of pressure applied so they could spring a leak equivalent in size and force to the aftereffects of a comet careening into the side of the Hoover Dam; or like the force of himself careening into the woman he loved, as he'd just done a short while ago and had every intention of doing all over again, just as soon as he could get her to stop yelling at him.


	17. Her Faux Pas

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 17: Her Faux Pas_

"Surely you, of all people, had to know what her reaction would be!"

"Yes, dear," Tony smirked with his back turned, amused to find how well his voice was able to so subtly pull off an imitation of a henpecked husband. As badly as he wanted to test out the "whatever you say, dear" part, he consciously fought the temptation for fear of Michelle catching on and chastising him for yet another five solid minutes.

"Are you even listening to me?" she asked in a distinctly irritated tone, watching him dig through the bottom of his closet on his hands and knees, indiscriminately selecting shoes and shaking them upside-down.

"Yes, dear," he dared to repeat, grateful he had his back to her, sparing himself the added burden of having to maintain a straight face. "I'm insensitive," he repeated her earlier charge, struggling to suppress another chuckle under his breath.

"I can see your shoulders shaking, you know. I'm not blind," she grumbled, fully aware of the good time he was having yessing her to death, with feebly cloaked responses smothering in obsequiousness.

Feeling it probably prudent to quit while he was barely ahead, Tony smirked in silence as he sifted through the remainder of his shoes only to come up empty. He exhaled a deep sigh. He could've sworn he'd finally decided to stash the microcontroller inside a shoe after having thought long and hard about a variety of places that Mrs. Sanchez's grandbrats were least likely to find it. Only now it was he who couldn't find it.

But it was definitely somewhere in the bedroom. He'd never have left it in his office down the hall, knowing it was the boys' favorite room to invade whenever they were able to steal a few unsupervised minutes behind their grandmother's back. Basilio always took abundant delight in religiously leaving behind some form of signature evidence to taunt him, like the half-eaten, open-faced peanut butter sandwich Tony had found adhered face-down to his keyboard the last time they were over.

The peanut butter, all but autographed by Basilio's hand, was also the kid's way of daring him to rat him out to his grandmother, Tony knew, which would give Basilio license to legitimately call him a "snitch" or a "stool pigeon" to his face for the rest of his life. But Tony had resolved long ago to deny Basilio such satisfaction, opting to pay the little punk back in other, more creative ways. Like the time Basilio had stashed a cheesy, cheap-sex Detective magazine under Tony's bed, knowing that his grandmother would come across it while vacuuming. After Mrs. Sanchez had indeed found and handed him the tawdry periodical with a disapproving tsk and frown, Tony had hit the web that evening, investing over an hour — and $22.00, plus shipping and handling — locating a vintage issue of National Geographic with topless Ubangi tribal women adorning the cover, which he slipped into Basilio's school backpack at the first available opportunity. Rumor had it that things got a little rough for Basilio when, come homework time, he'd dumped his backpack's contents onto the family's dining room table, nearly giving his grandmother a coronary and provoking a mild asthma attack in his older sister.

"Whoa, whoa... What are ya doing, honey? Don't... not there!" he said in alarm after catching a glimpse over his shoulder of Michelle crawling across the bed, apparently on her way to settle in for a quick power-snooze.

"Huh?"

"Don't move," he panicked, speedily whisking her off the bed as though he were snatching her from the jaws of a Great White. "That Old Spice on your dress is gonna get all over the sheets and seep right through to the mattress," he fretted, realizing how much he'd just sounded like Michelle in high-neat mode, but nonetheless relieved that he'd turned around in time to prevent her from making full-figure contact with the bedding.

"So? What if it does?" she said, shocked and somewhat annoyed to find herself on her feet again, right back where she had started. "I like the scent of Old Spice. Don't you?"

"Yeah, on my Dad. Not on the sheets," Tony grumbled, taking the added precautionary measure of moving her by the shoulders a few more feet away from the bed. "It's not something I wanna be inhaling in the middle of... things..."

"Why not?" she asked.

"'Cause it'll make me think of... well... you know..."

As soon as he'd said it, he realized that, no, Michelle likely didn't know. One would have to have grown up with parents to know the jolting, horrifying feeling associated with mentally envisioning their parents "doing it," and knowing for a fact that they had to have definitely done it at least once in their marriage in order for oneself to even be alive today. Worse was the likelihood that they'd even been totally naked while doing it, which was the kind of life-altering stuff that made eight-year-olds reflexively gag, thirteen-year-olds freeze in their tracks, twenty-five-year-olds yell at the dog for no good reason, and thirty-seven-year-olds lose their staying power right in the middle of "doing it" themselves.

Since he had every intention of engaging in a Michelle-athon all afternoon, Tony knew that the cologne wafting up from his sheets was bound to prompt at least one vivid mental flash of his parents engaged in hot, sweaty, heathen sex, which was all it would take to effectively pull the plug on equipment vital to the lovemaking process.

"No, I don't know. What?" Michelle predictably asked, his blundering statement having activated her internal need-to-know mechanism, just like clockwork.

"How come neither of your aunts ever got married?" he responded, his change in subject so abrupt that it even made his own eyebrows arch a little.

"What's that got to do with Old Spice and the bed sheets?" she promptly busted him in her usual, inimitable manner.

"Just... just answer the question," he grumbled in frustration, having no reasonable explanation beyond the truth — one good flash of his parents doing pagan things to each other and he'd be out of commission for God only knew how long. Besides, he didn't want to raise the subject of her parents again, knowing that the chance of saying something wrong, and irritating her even more, was somewhere up in the ninety-percentile.

Sinking to his knees, he peered around under the bed, wondering if the grandbrats might've ransacked his closet and stashed the chip where they knew he would have to literally crawl on his stomach like a reptile to retrieve it.

"Answer the Old Spice question and then I'll tell you anything you want to know about my aunts," Michelle bargained with him to no avail, making note of how perfectly perched the rear pockets of his jeans were for a well-placed, well-deserved kick right about now.

"What on earth are you looking for, anyway?" she tsk-ed him.

"Just a chip that I wanted to install while I was thinking about it," he sighed, growing more and more certain by the second that Basilio's grubby little fingerprints were all over its disappearance. He pulled his head out from under the bed and rose up to find the forlorn pout of a decidedly unhappy camper.

"What's the matter, baby. C'mere," he said, easing her in for a comforting embrace. "What's got ya so outta sorts, huh? I know it's not my insensitivity. You're used to that."

"I don't know," she murmured, feeling about as energetic as the average corpse. She had intended to look up the typical morning-after symptoms of barbiturates on his computer, which would have simultaneously offered her a primo chance to snoop around his office a bit. But even now, with ample time, ripe opportunity, and legitimate circumstances calling out her name, she couldn't quite conjure the firepower to drag herself down the hall.

"Still tired?" he asked rhetorically, figuring her irritability was primarily owed to the grogginess that she seemed to be having a lot of trouble shaking off. She might also be feeling naturally whacky, he figured, from that "monthly" state she was in.

"I guess so," she yawned against his chest as he felt his heart sink at the prospect of her sleeping away even so much as a few of the precious hours they had left together before they'd have to share themselves with the outside world again.

"Come inside with me," he said, gently kissing the top of her head. "I'll fix ya another blast of caffeine."

"No, thanks, dear. I'm really not in the mood," she grumbled, allowing her eyes to slide shut for just a minute.

Tony crooked his head to steal a glance at her face. As much as he was dying to get back into bed, into her arms, into her again, he made the executive decision to take a run to her apartment, instead, so she could gather the clothes she would need for work in the morning. Not only was it a chore that he'd just as soon be done with earlier than later, but it would get her into the fresh air and sunshine, which would undoubtedly go far in clearing her head and revitalizing her energy and spirit.

As he rocked on his heels for a few more quiet moments, he contemplated checking in with Max again and asking about her drowsiness, which seemed excessive and had him a little concerned.

"Want me to help you look for the chip?" Michelle finally murmured through yet another thick yawn, feeling she had better start moving before she literally fell asleep on her feet.

"Nah, that's okay. It'll turn up at some point," he convinced himself as his eyes made another quick scan around the room, this time from the perspective of a seven-year-old bandito. "Besides, I was thinking it's probably a good time to take ya home and get that outta the way," he mumbled, mindlessly scratching the side of his cheek and recalling that, at one point, he had thought about stashing the chip in the dresser drawer amid his boxers, confident that Basilio would rather jump out the high-rise window than make contact with his underwear.

"Home?" Michelle repeated, feeling her head snap back and her heart leap and lodge squarely in her throat, thoroughly startled by the abruptness and casualness with which he had apparently decided to bring their date to a screeching conclusion. "You're thinking of doing that... now?"

"Yeah, well," he replied, "it's a good time, traffic-wise. And it's supposed to rain later. So I'd rather get the drive out of the way while the sun's still out... Okay?"

Huh? Was he really asking if it was okay with her that he had suddenly decided to dump her back at her doorstep, approximately an entire day earlier than previously planned? And for what reason? Was he suddenly bored with her? Tired of the sound of her voice? Sick of looking at her yellow floral dress?

"Well... well, what about the rest of the day... and tonight?" she couldn't help but inquire, feeling herself suddenly beginning to literally swoon in his arms, only not in a good way.

"What about it?" he mindlessly replied, momentarily peeling his eyes away from canvassing the room to stare at her blankly, not quite sure what she wanted to know.

Did her ears just hear correctly? What about it, did he just say — cavalierly, one could even legitimately argue? As in what's the big deal about whether they spend the rest of the weekend together... or not? Did it suddenly not matter to him, one way or the other, or was there something she was missing here? Had he maybe made prior plans and not seen fit to even mention it to her? Or was it a case where he'd already told her, only while she had still been semi-comatose, and had since forgotten about it, or had never really quite absorbed the information in the first place?

"Was there something else you had planned for the day?" she calmly asked, feeling herself oddly growing lightheaded and hotheaded at the same time.

"Nah, nothing special," he shrugged, feeling his concern-o-meter on the rise again from what appeared to be yet another noticeably abrupt shift in her tone and mood. "Just the... y'know, the regular Sunday stuff... Reading the paper, drinking some coffee... Maybe rewiring a couple of peripherals while I'm switching out the chip... if I ever find the damned thing," he mumbled, backing her up a step closer to the dresser and leaning past her to slide open the boxers drawer.

"You're gonna read...the papers...? That's what you were planning on doing today?" she asked with wide eyes and a terse voice.

"Well, uhhh... yeah, I thought I would," he responded cautiously, catching a ring of anger surfacing in her tone. He had actually planned on sinking his teeth, and every other part of himself, into her for the next several hours, but didn't feel like now was such a good time to bring it up, given the less-than-romantic scowl on her face. "Is that okay?" he double-checked on the outside chance that maybe she had something in mind for them, like cashing in one of her checks at the Bank of Almeida — hopefully check number three, if there really was a God.

Somebody please tell her that this wasn't actually happening. He couldn't possibly be ditching her now, preferring the L.A. Times and a double espresso to her company? Was her weariness beginning to ruin his day? Was that it? The weariness she wouldn't even have right now if it hadn't been for the water he had carelessly handed to her?

"I was gonna put The Guns on, too, but that's not 'til tonight... after dark," he reminded her of the rules governing films with a high-testosterone rating. "Why? Was there something else ya wanted to do?"

Like... spend the rest of her life with him, did he mean? Or was he asking if she wanted to try doing it while swinging from the rafters this time, or atop an agitating washing machine, or while standing on her head and whistling Dixie before he deposited her back at her door and raced home to his L.A. Times?

"No... no, not really..."

"So, uhh... ya wanna start getting a move on, then?" he thought he should suggest, given she had barely moved a muscle since he'd laid out the agenda. "I really would love to be back here by the time the rain hits, honey... Hmmm?... Okay?"

Shell-shocked, she stammered out something that sounded like "Yeah, sure," as the hurt began intensifying a hundred-fold per second.

Tony's eyes widened, watching her abruptly snatch her purse and storm away to the bathroom. At least her energy level seemed to be increasing, he looked on the bright side as the door shut behind her with an unusually firm thud.

Please, God, no. This couldn't possibly be happening to her again, she prayed, taking deep breaths as she started to gather the few items she had placed in the drawers and medicine cabinet. He couldn't possibly be just another one of "those" guys, could he? Those wine-em-and-dine-em-and-do-em-and-ditch-em types, to whom she had already fallen prey, like a gullible fool, once too often in her short-lived romantic lifetime. Those slick operators who regarded women in general as little more than convenient semen receptacles, using them to satisfy carnal cravings, then dropping them off at their doorsteps and essentially ignoring their very existences until such time as the urge struck to get it on again. Those terminally insensitive men, who would tell a woman anything she wanted or needed to hear just to... Oh, my God! "Insensitive," did she just hear herself say?

She couldn't believe this was actually happening to her — again! She was furious. Furious and hurt. More hurt than furious. Possibly the other way around; she wasn't sure. Stupid, too. Let's not forget stupid. And gullible: her specialty.

She should've known better. This entire weekend — everything about it — had all been way, way, way too good to be true. Good stuff like that didn't happen to Michelle Dessler. Sexy, handsome heartthrobbers were never interested in her. They could date, boff, or settle down with any woman they wanted, including a supermodel, which Michelle was far from. She looked like a Shirley Temple doll, made by Mattel.

And how could she not have even seen this coming from a couple of zillion miles away? She'd been learning the hard way her entire life, after all, with "those" types and so-called normal men alike. Oh, a big two of them had been desperate enough to actually stay aboard for a couple of years, but she had managed to eventually bore them out of her life as well. One of them had even been a mega-bore himself: an accountant named Edward. Leave it to Michelle Dessler to out-bore a professional bore.

"Hey, y'know, umm... we don't have to go right now, if ya don't want to," Tony said through his side of the sealed door, his fingertips brainlessly picking at a notch of paint that had bubbled up on the frame eons ago.

"No, no. Let's just get this over with," she answered with icy pleasantness, proving conclusively for all the ages that two diametrically opposing tones of voice could indeed be achieved in the same syllable.

He wondered if one of those monthly mood-swing things was possibly in play. "Erratic behavior" was a classic warning sign, he knew. He remembered having read it in one of those men's health magazines, distinctly recalling how surprised he'd been to discover that he'd been misspelling "erratic" with only one "r" his entire life.

"You all right, baby?" he braved it again, fiddling now with what had grown into an eyesore of bare wood from having picked away too much of the paint.

"Of course. Why on earth wouldn't I be?" she coldly replied, grabbing the bent, creased tampon box, with the wrong-size tampons, and stuffing it into her purse, then pulling it out on second thought and placing it smack in the middle of his medicine cabinet, where even a blind man would have to go out of his way to miss it.

One disappointment right after the other. Just like the last man she'd blindly entrusted with her heart for close to two years — Campbell — only to be dumped like a hot potato for a daffy, flirty, cheap blonde who'd thought he was related to the Campbell Soup family. How she even could've dated somebody named "Campbell" in the first place was beyond her. And now, here was Tony Almeida himself — just another one of "those," as her atrocious luck in love would have it — taking his turn at stepping up to the plate and batting her heart clean out of the stadium.

She wasn't about to give him the ego-boosting satisfaction of knowing he had been slick and handsome and sexy enough to leave her pining for more. No way would she give him that. She would simply pretend that she didn't give any more of a hoot about cutting the weekend short than he did; that it had all been great fun and a ton of laughs, but meaningless sex, in the grand scheme of things; that he, unfortunately, didn't quite cut it for her beyond a couple of sordid, devil-may-care days and nights; that she was obviously already in the process of seamlessly moving on to bigger, better, and greener pastures. It would drive him crazy.

"I don't know. Ya just seem a little... I dunno... aggravated, or something. And I was just thinking that maybe..."

"Do I?" she curtly cut him off, yanking the door open and blowing past him with purse in hand. "Now, why would I have any cause to be aggravated... hmmm?" she coldly queried, dropping her purse onto the bed and skimming its contents to be sure she'd retrieved everything that belonged to her, ruining his next conquest's snooping expedition before it ever got started.

Tony took a few ginger steps up behind her and slid his arms around her waist.

"Then how 'bout a smile, ya big grouch," he cooed sweetly and tenderly, snuggling his cheek against hers and giving it a soft kiss.

A smile. How rich. The man wants a smile. Does that not beat all? The man will be dropping dead of old age before he ever sees another smile cross her face. Oh, she'll be perfectly pleasant and polite at the office, of course. And professional, which goes without saying. She'd be darned before she'd allow him, or anybody else, to affect her on a professional level. If there was one thing Michelle Dessler would always be remembered for, it was her stalwart professionalism at all times, under all conditions, circumstances, and pressures. Except when she broke down crying in the hallway last week, but that was technically a family-related matter and didn't really count.

I-love-you.

Wow. All three words. How smooth. One didn't come across that level of smooth too often in a lifetime — fortunately.

As her heart was breaking, she thought seriously about how uncomfortable their working relationship might become if she were to bring a lawsuit for damages resulting from the intoxicated state he had carelessly and recklessly allowed her to fall into last night, with depraved indifference to her human life.

"Y'know, I don't have to install that chip, either," he offered, nuzzling and kissing her ear. "It was just something I had kept putting off, 'cause stuff kept coming up. But if there's something else you'd like to do..."

Stuff. Now she was "stuff." Another one of those nagging pieces of stuff that just kept coming up and deterring him from getting other, legitimately important "stuff" done. That's nice. Well, at least he'd gotten that dinner-and-a-movie "stuff" over and done with. Perhaps he'd like to boff her in her parking lot one last time before dumping her at her doorstep, neatly wrapping "stuff" up with some sort of pithy farewell line, like, "Gee, ya sure know how to show a guy a good time, baby." Then she could punch him and never speak to him outside the office again.

Yet another one for the Michelle Dessler history books, she silently brooded, abruptly taking a step to move herself away from him.

"Look, umm..." he said, gently catching her wrist and drawing her back to him, "I don't know if you're aware of this, honey," he continued in an easy, tender tone, "but you're, umm... behaving a little strangely, and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe..."

"I'm perfectly fine," she responded with enough rigidity in her body and coldness in her voice to give him frostbite.

"See, umm... I don't think you are," he persevered, undaunted. "In fact, I'm starting to get a little concerned..."

Wow, this guy just had pure, premium, grade-A moxie running through his veins, didn't he. Was he actually so morally vacant as to suggest that she was some sort of "strange" oddball for taking sex — make that lovemaking — just a little more seriously than he? For seeing the act as the most supreme form of expressing one's genuine love for another, while he evidently perceived it as little more than a sport? She had bared and shared her soul with him. He had told her that he loved her. And now he was... what? "Concerned" that perhaps she had taken it all just a little too seriously?

"Look, it's probably just one of those mood swings you women get, but I was thinking it might be a good idea to give Max a call, just in case it has something to do with... y'know, the drugs," he bravely ventured.

"Mood swings..." she repeated, to be sure she had heard his sexist comment correctly.

"It's, y'know... possible, honey, considering the time of the..."

"You mean like the kind of mood swings we womenfolk get during our periods?" she innocently inquired, watching his eyes wince in pain. "Yes, our gynecologists tell us that mood swings are quite common during our periods. Fortunately, there's medication for that and a host of other problems, too, like cramps caused by blood clots and..."

"Michelle, Michelle," he flinched and stammered, "just... Honey, look. It's just that you're all upset ... overly upset over basically nothing... and it just came over you out of nowhere. And I was just thinking that I'd rather... y'know, play it safe and get a doctor's take on it, considering all those drugs in your system..."

"Basically nothing," she repeated, abruptly yanking her wrist free. "I see... That's what this weekend has meant to you, hasn't it? Basically nothing..."

His eyes widened in surprise, following her as she took off like a flash through the bedroom door.

"See, now, honey, that's another thing," he gently pointed out as he hurriedly trailed her into the living room. "You're, umm... you're suddenly not making a whole lot of sense, either..."

She was also completely ignoring him now, it was plain to see, as she dialed a number into her cell phone.

"No need to waste your time driving me home, incidentally," she mentioned, courteously and professionally. "Just go... do your chip search and your installation and... oh, and that newspaper-reading marathon you had planned for yourself. I'll see myself home. Thanks anyway," she informed him, shooing him away with the back of her hand.

Tony stared for a quick moment before crossing over to the counter and picking up his own phone.

"That's it," he muttered entirely to himself as he brought up Max's number, feeling no further need to involve a crazy woman in the decision-making process. He should never even have indulged her for as long as he had, in fact. Something was wrong with her and he was just going to do what needed to be done. She would understand later, after these crazy mood swings, or this drug reaction, or whatever the hell was making her certifiable, had eventually passed.

"You and Max go and have a nice afternoon together," she said, already having a good idea of whom he was calling. "Maybe his female patients will stop dropping dead from T.S.S. long enough to free him up for lunch and a couple of holes of golf," she sarcastically hoped for his sake.

"Max? Yeah, Tony Almeida... Yeah, umm... listen, what are the side effects of that stuff she took? She's acting like... No, I mean, like, mental side effects..."

"Yes, may I have the number of a cab company?" Michelle politely and professionally barked into her cell. "Hmm?... Any company. I don't care which... Any name you like. Pick one... Just any company located within the general vicinity of Westwood..."

"Huh?... No, no, not long-term, like addiction. I meant... Hold... hold on a second, Max. One second..." he said, glaring at Michelle. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Yes, any cab company at all within that general vicinity would be fine... Uh-huh... Westwood, yes..."

"Michelle, put that phone down," he demanded. She ignored him. "Michelle...!"

"Well, no, if I had a Yellow Pages handy, I wouldn't have had to call Information to find a... Hmmm?"

"I just ordered you to hang up that phone, Michelle, and I mean right now!" Tony sternly repeated, struggling mightily to keep his anger in check.

"I'm sorry, but could you hold on just a second, please? Some loud-mouthed fool seems to be under the absurd, misguided impression that he lauds some form of authority over me on my days off from work... I'll just be a... Hmm?"

"Max?... Max, I'll have to call ya back... Nah, that's okay. It's not... Wait, wait. Max, y'know that, that PMS business...?"

"9-1-1? No, no, that won't be necessary. I'm armed, but thank you for your concern... Hmm?"

"Can it make a woman go, like... insane? Like, temporarily insane?... Well, I mean, like, making no sense at all... Michelle! You put that damned phone down this second, y'hear me?"

"Or what? Ya gonna put me on report? I'm off the clock, buddy," she glared up and curtly reminded him before returning her attention to her phone conversation. "...I'm sorry. 'Sunnydale Car Service,' did you say?... Yes, that sounds fine..."

"Max, I gotta... Nah, I'll call ya back," Tony said at the end of his wits, snapping his cell shut and tossing it onto the counter.

"Hang up, Michelle! You're not going anywhere in a cab!" he barked at top volume, reminiscent of the scream fest he'd had in her face only last week when she'd refused to disclose Jack's whereabouts, completely ignoring at least a dozen direct orders before she had finally come clean with him.

"Uh-huh... Got it. Thank you so much... No, no, that won't be necessary, really. He's not dangerous. Just an idiot," Michelle assured the concerned operator as Tony fumed with arms akimbo and nostrils flaring.

"I told you to hang that up," he barked at her again, wincing slightly from the power-poke he received to his chest from the end of her cell phone after she'd snapped it shut.

"Now hear this, fat boy. You don't tell me to do anything outside that office. Y'got that?" she snapped, applying a little extra pressure to his chest the second poke around.

"Y'see? Y'see what I mean? 'Fat boy.' That makes no sense, Michelle... Where do ya see fat? Huh? Point it out..."

"Shall we start with your head?" she coldly inquired, blowing past him on her way back to the bedroom.

He stared in silence for a moment as she disappeared into the hallway, returning a few seconds later with her purse.

"I'm taking you to the doctor," he announced under no uncertain terms, picking up his phone to dial Max again.

"I'm not going to the doctor's," she informed him, picking up the slip of paper with the cab company's number on it.

"Yeah, ya are," he said in a low, determined voice, having no intention of arguing about it another minute further. "Yeah, me again. Look, I hate to ask ya on a Sunday, and all, but I need to bring Michelle over. Something's not right with the way she's..."

"Hi, Sunnydale? Yes, could you please send a car to..."

"Yeah, entirely out of the blue... Nah, I don't know what the hell triggered it," he said, deftly popping Michelle's phone out of her hand and pocketing it, much to her surprise and chagrin. "Okay, good. I'll see ya over there," he said and snapped the phone shut. "Get ready. We're leaving in two minutes," he grumbled, not really angry with her, but with the circumstances that were hard at work screwing up the lazy day of blissful romance and sweet serenity he had planned to share with the woman he loved, transforming the stimulating picture in his mind into one big, thick cloud of black smoke.

"There is nothing wrong with me. I am not going to the doctor's. And you are gonna stop bossing me around starting this second, mister. Is that understood?"

He ignored her, gathering his wallet and phone and glancing around for his keys. As he approached, Michelle could tell from the look in his eye that he was determined to physically carry her out to the car if it came to that, flashing that badge of his at anyone who sought to interfere.

"Fine. You want to waste more of your precious weekend with me? Fine. You can drive me home. But I'm not going to the doctor's and that's final," she snapped.

"Look, I don't want to fight about this, Michelle. You're clearly... Michelle, wait... Wait up!" he called out as she disappeared like a flash through the door.

He hustled the keys through the series of locks, then tore down the hallway and made a right, but she had evidently caught an elevator in the interim. With visions of her out on the street in search of a cab, Tony bounded down the fire stairwell in a mild panic, panting hard but immensely relieved when he found her waiting impatiently by the passenger side of his car.

It was all Michelle could do to hold back the tears as she watched his body moving toward her. The massive heartache was already setting in. She dreaded the weeks and weeks — no, months and months, for sure — of upcoming pain and emptiness that awaited her on the other side of her apartment door.

"Can you at least tell me why you're so mad at me?" he breathlessly inquired in a gentle and civil manner, but none too surprisingly his question went unanswered. As he fiddled with the keys, he wondered how he was going to prevent her from leaping out of the car the second she realized that he was indeed headed toward Max's, in the opposite direction of her apartment.

As he stooped down in front of her opened door, checking to assure that her seatbelt was firmly locked in place, she could see that all-too-familiar look of pain steadily growing in his eyes as he glanced up at her.

"Y'know, all I said was..."

"No need to explain yourself. You don't owe me anything," she generously offered, intent upon maintaining her air of indifference. "Besides, I've got a million things I'd like to do this afternoon, so if you wouldn't mind, let's just get on the road, shall we? Hmmm?"

He didn't get on the road. Rather, he got behind the wheel, slid the key into the ignition, and sat staring out the windshield for a long moment, looking rather glum and forlorn; even a little lost as far as Michelle could reckon. Good. He obviously couldn't imagine why she didn't seem the least bit nonplussed about being ditched by him. Her plan was already working like a charm.

"Would you mind very much if we just got going?" she politely requested a second time, straightening the hem of her yellow floral dress, which she fully intended to burn later that evening somewhere around her eighty-fifth glass of wine, or so.

"Would you mind paying me the courtesy of answering just one question before we do?" he turned his head and asked in a low, calm, polite voice, his eyes looking as though they were about to bleed tears.

She felt an instant pang hit her square in the heart. She loved those eyes. She had thought she'd be spending the rest of her life with those eyes. And that voice. She didn't want to lose that voice. She wanted to hear it in her ear again, panting out praises for the way she made him feel; telling her how much she excited him; asking for things; begging for things; sharing things he'd never told anyone else before. God, she missed him already...

"Sure, I'll answer your question if it'll help speed things up any," she stoically replied, maintaining her cool, calm exterior despite the heart-sickness that raged inside.

"Does this... this behavior of yours seem normal to you? Seriously. I just want you to step back for a minute and look at it from my perspective. Look at how furious you are with me," he stated, logically and rationally, "when all I said was that I wanted us to get your stuff and get home while it was still nice outside. I was thinking of you, in fact, Michelle. I thought the fresh air would pick you up. And ya flew right off the handle at me and have been breathing fire ever..."

He paused to study the rapid transformation of expression taking place on her face, from an icy-cold glare to a wild-eyed gape, which suggested that he was either finally beginning to get through to her, or that she was about to puke on the floor of his car at any second. He waited in suspense until reasonably certain it wasn't the latter.

"Now do ya see the position I'm in? Why I'm insisting that we make a pit stop at Max's before going for your stuff, Michelle? I can't just let ya carry on like this and do nothing about it..."

"My stuff?" she asked weakly, seeming somewhat dazed and flustered. "You were driving me home... to get...?"

"Your stuff, honey. Yeah," he repeated, jotting "forgetfulness" and "suddenly very pale" down on the mental list he had begun compiling for Max, whom he knew would meticulously drill him for every last detail of Michelle's symptoms. "What did ya think we were gonna do? Make a trip over there in the morning? At the crack of dawn... in rush hour traffic? You're all the way east, Michelle. We'd be making almost a complete circle if we..."

He paused in mid-sentence and frowned, amazed by how quickly and dramatically her cheeks were changing hue right before his eyes, from a ghostly white to a flaming, mottled hot pink. Oh, swell: a rash. This had to be a rash of some sort, given how deep the redness was. Heat rashes and other assorted skin outbreaks were not at all uncommon reactions to massive intakes of narcotics. Damned if he hadn't been right all along; she had been having some sort of reaction to those godforsaken drugs. He was certain of it now.

"I'm, uhh... I think... I think I might've... I may have made a mistake about something, dear," Michelle sputtered nervously, her mind racing as she began to fully grasp just how huge an error it was, too; how ridiculously she'd been behaving; how foolish she must've appeared to him; how utterly at a loss she was to explain it.

Incoherent speech and difficulty in processing her thoughts. He promptly tacked them onto the list and contemplated including "befuddled" when she startled him by suddenly unhooking her seatbelt. He was certain she was about to bolt from the car, but she surprised him by leaning across the console, instead, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him hurriedly and passionately.

"Honey, I need to explain," she said a little breathlessly and frantically as her lips broke away.

How could he have forgotten to jot down "mood swings": gigantic, spin-on-a-dime, out-of-nowhere, like-night-and-day mood swings, approximate in size and magnitude to a mid-western twister roaring through a trailer park at record-breaking speeds.

"I... I must've misunderstood what you'd said before," she anxiously prattled on, but he was only barely listening, too absorbed with her cheeks and ears, which were glowing like barbeque coals now.

An ear rash? He'd never heard of that one before. Hot flashes, maybe? He wasn't sure until he stroked her cheek and felt the high level of heat radiating from her skin. Scratch the hot flashes; this was a fever, no doubt about it. A bona fide fever. Unbelievable. He could just see the two of them now: Michelle laid up in a hospital bed and himself warring with the nurses and sleeping all night in a stiff, straight-backed chair. He deserved it, too. This entire thing was all his fault. He'd be lucky if she ever forgave him for this.

"You don't understand, dear. It's not what you think. I don't have to see a doctor. I feel just fine. It's just that when you said you were taking me home before, I... I, umm..."

"We've already been through this, baby. You're going," he stated calmly, but firmly, thinking of how much time he had already wasted getting her over to Max's as it was.

He thought of what kind of parent he would ultimately make if he allowed himself to be sidetracked and swayed by such ploys and pleas. He made a personal commitment on the spot to get better at standing his ground and doing what his instincts dictated, so he wouldn't find himself giving in to a mini-Michelle down the road someday, crying, "But I don't have to see a doctor to get my broken arm fixed, Daddy! You don't understand! I feel fine! It's not as bad as you think!"

He shouldn't have even indulged Michelle that call to the cab company. He should've just taken her phone away from the start.

"Just... honey, please, just pay me the courtesy of hearing me out," Michelle requested calmly and rationally, hitting him with his own words as she laid her hand gently against his forearm and gave him those penetrating doe eyes of hers. "Please, dear..."

She seemed so normal now, like her old self again. He sighed and, against his better judgement, pulled off to the side and patiently folded his arms across his chest, making another personal commitment to also get better at fending off those doe eyes. She used them on him like hypnotism.

"Two minutes, Michelle," he grumbled.

Five minutes later, after studiously listening to every nervous, disjointed word of her explanation, he scrunched his face and lightly shook his head in complete confusion.

"I must've missed something," he said. "Why would you think I was 'dumping' you at your place? It isn't even noon yet... We still have the whole day and night, Michelle... I don't get where you're going with this..."

He had missed the point entirely. She was almost grateful for it. No, make that grateful indeed. Eternally grateful.

"It's, umm... Y'know what, dear? It was a stupid misunderstanding on my part and... and I apologize for the way I acted, and... Well, let's just forget all this. Let's just grab my things and get back before the rain starts up, like you said, dear..."

"Wait a minute... Just... just hold on a second," he said with the same scrunched expression, but an element of disbelief now emerging in his voice and eyes as the pieces finally began tumbling into place. "You're not saying that ya actually believed I was doing that... are ya? That I was using you.. and was all set to dump ya... just like that?... Michelle?"

His worst fears were confirmed when she didn't even attempt to deny, refute, modify, elaborate, expound upon, amend or defend her position or actions.

"Michelle!" he said in disbelief. "How could ya even think I was capable of doing that... to you or to anybody?... Hell, what am I saying. You didn't just think it. You were convinced of it... and acting on it, for cryssake. You were biting my head off..."

"It was crazy of me, I know, dear," she tried to apologize, focusing on the hurt intensifying in his eyes. "I don't even know how to explain it. Something must've just..."

"What about all the time we just spent together? Were ya even paying attention up there?" he said in a blend of anger and insult, flashing his eyes upward in reference to the apartment, where they'd made such exquisite love to each other; where he'd shared some of his deepest, darkest secrets with her; where he'd fallen in love with her and made up his mind to propose to her.

"Geeziz, Michelle," he grumbled in anger. "Don't ya think I have just a little more integrity and character than that?"

"Of course I do, dear. You know I do. I didn't mean to suggest anything like that," she anxiously pleaded, feeling perfectly awful.

"Well, ya had to believe it was at least possible, since ya actually convinced yourself that I was nothing but a conniving liar... just saying all that stuff to bamboozle sex outta you..."

She could hardly deny the accusation. It was precisely what she had managed to talk herself into believing, for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand at the moment, much less explain to him.

"Geeziz," he brooded angrily, throwing the car into gear with a little more force than usual. "Don't ya think ya ought to have just a little more faith in me than that? And... and maybe just a modicum of trust, at least? I mean... geeziz, Michelle, we're supposed to be two people in love, here, for cryssake, aren't we?"

"Of course we are. You know we are," she sheepishly reassured him.

"I know this side of the car is," he bellowed. "I don't know what the hell's going on over on your side," he fumed, shaking his head in astonishment and disappointment as he wove his way into traffic, a deep, angry frown carved into his brow.

Michelle's heart was back in her throat. She stared awkwardly and uncomfortably down at her hands in her lap while he called Max and apologized for the false alarm, then locked his eyes on the road ahead and drove in dead silence. She hadn't anticipated wounding his feelings or ego, or inadvertently calling his integrity — if not the entire core of his character — into question. At worst, she had figured he'd be rankled for having been snapped at by her, and would scowl about it for awhile, then quickly recover as he always did.

How could she have even allowed her imagination to get away from her like that? Had past encounters and relationships really scarred and jaded her to the extent that she wasn't even capable of trusting anymore? Not even him, the love of her life? Had she become so accustomed to relationships failing that if they didn't begin disintegrating on their own in a certain amount of time, she would subconsciously begin initiating the process herself?

As they drove in uncomfortable silence for a few more interminably long minutes, she could feel his eyes occasionally glance at her profile as if having a second look at what he had gotten himself into. As she began to roughly estimate the destruction she had already done to their relationship, he surprised her by unexpectedly careening across two lanes and pulling up onto an embankment.

She waited with bated breath, bracing herself for the worst while he took a moment to collect himself before turning to her.

"That promise ya made me make this morning, Michelle? About always being honest with you? That's gotta be a two-way street," he sternly insisted.

"I know," she conceded in a small voice, thoroughly humiliated.

"Here you were all prepared to never to speak to me again, and over... what? A simple miscommunication? I drop a couple of words, 'to pick up your stuff'... and that's it? You're through with me?... Relationship over?"

She felt her cheeks burning a little more, as if that were even physically possible at this point.

"We can't have this, Michelle," he stated harshly, shaking his head in disbelief all over again. "All ya had to say back there was, 'Why are you taking me home?' Five words, and this whole thing would've been avoided."

It was six words, actually, but who could count at a time like this. She felt like her stomach was devouring itself.

"Do ya have any idea how worried I was that something was seriously wrong with you the way you were carrying on like that? Geeziz," he railed.

"I know... I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm just... I'm not very good at this. I tend to internalize things," she stammered.

"I'll say," he groused angrily, turning away and preparing to throw the car into gear again.

"I'll, umm... work on that," she volunteered, relieved that he hadn't just called the relationship quits.

"Don't work on it. Just do it," he growled. "And I want a promise outta you, right here and now... that you'll tell me when something's bugging you next time," he firmly demanded. "If something I say doesn't sound right to you, you're just gonna have to open your mouth and come out with it... I can't read minds, y'know," he barked out a reminder.

"I know... I will," she agreed, thanking God he was even still thinking along the lines of there being a next time.

"And another thing, Michelle... Just for the record, I don't exactly have to lie and bamboozle women into sleeping with me," he castigated her with a wounded scowl, clearly nursing an injured ego. "There's a nice healthy number of them out there right now who wouldn't mind being in your shoes. Let's just put it that way," he informed her, in case she didn't know.

"I'm more than well aware of that, dear," she guaranteed him, feeling his eyes immediately dart over to her profile as if wondering what kind of talk she might've heard around the office, from whom and how many.

"Yeah, well... Ya might be wise not to forget it, either," he cryptically advised her, leaving her to just chew on those words for awhile. He didn't like having to get rough with her like that, but it was probably best that she knew what kind of competition she was up against.

As he assessed the fear of God that he'd probably thrown into her by now, he felt his heart soften at the sight of how painfully pink her cheeks and ears still appeared, softening even more when her apologetic doe eyes looked up at him, saturated with regret and remorse.

"All right, then," he mumbled, like a cop letting her off the hook with only a warning this time. Satisfied that he had sufficiently made his points clear and had left her with enough to think about for now, he merged back into the flow of traffic. "We're gonna talk about this some more later on, though," he gave her fair warning, despite already having a fairly good idea of what had inspired her irrational bout of doubt in the first place. It likely had a lot less to do with him than it did with her past, he strongly suspected; specifically, the first big significant blow she'd been dealt in the love arena.

"That's fine," she responded sheepishly.

They drove for a long while in silence before she had conjured the courage to speak.

"I didn't meant to hurt your feelings," she said in a low, conciliatory tone.

"You didn't," he lied through his teeth, the brood still present in his voice, though having subsided substantially. "Everything's fine," he murmured, his eyes not leaving the road, but his palm dropping down from the wheel and coming to rest atop her tightly folded hands.

She gazed down. She loved his hands. Over all those many months, she had memorized every vein, line, and inch of them, both left and right, in every position and situation. Now she had watched and felt them doing new and wondrous things, compelling her to look at them in a whole new light and memorize them all over again.

"Y'know, I, umm... I love you... more than I even knew human beings were capable of loving," she said to his hand, feeling his eyes veer away from the road and onto her profile. "...just in case you didn't know," she decided to add, logically assuming that he had to be wondering, after that hideous show of distrust she had performed for him.

That was all three words she had said, he thought to himself in surprise. All three and then some. Consciously and deliberately, too. He hadn't expected it. It had taken him by surprise. He allowed the smallest, minuscule smile to dent the corners of his mouth. Her timing had been perfect, as usual.

"I don't want you to worry, either," she added after a minute, in a serious, somber tone.

"I'm not," he assured her, his eyes still fixed firmly on the road ahead but his hand giving hers a gentle squeeze to punctuate the verity of his words.

They drove in silence, eyes on the windshield, for a few more minutes before she spoke to his hand again.

"Umm... I realize this is an odd time to say it, under the circumstances and all, but... you really can trust me, you know," she stated with timidity, given her lack of credibility, annihilated by her own hand. "That craziness before — it wasn't about you," she wanted him to know, though he himself had already come to that conclusion on his own.

"Yeah, well... I don't know about that," he mock-grumbled anyway, not feeling the least bit angry anymore, but not wanting her to think she could wriggle off the hook that easily either. "I didn't exactly notice any other guys in that bed," he pointed out.

"Not guys. Old ghosts is probably more like it," she clarified, her face lightly awash in embarrassment again. "I think a couple of them decided to pay me an unexpected visit and, umm... I guess I just succumbed to some old fears and insecurities."

That was obvious to him, but he pretended to give it some consideration for a moment anyway.

"I can understand that, I guess," he threw her a break. "Ya gotta remember, though, that those ghosts are from the past. It's just me ya gotta trust now."

"You're right. I know. I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I guess with a romantic track record like mine, after a while you just — you start to feel like it's not so much the person you don't trust, but love itself... if that makes any sense."

He nodded, slowly and knowingly, giving her hand another light, reassuring squeeze.

"I don't exactly have the most sparkling track record either, y'know," he said, hoping it would make her feel a little better about hers. "My last significant relationship ended up in front of a House subcommittee, if you'll recall," he elaborated with a slight wince, remembering some of the more delicate, intimate details he'd had to disclose to congressional investigators in the process of clearing himself of any direct involvement in CTU's bombing. "We've all got our war wounds and battle scars, honey, so don't think of yourself as so alone out there."

"You're right, of course," she sighed, chewing the side of her lip for a moment. "I just wish I were a little stronger when it comes to this kind of stuff, like you are, dear," she ruminated. "I'm just not as resilient, I guess. I don't think I could've survived a hit like the one you took. I think I'd have been too scarred for life to ever pursue another relationship again."

"Don't sell yourself so short, honey," he gently bolstered her frail self-confidence. "You took a pretty good hit, there, yourself, yet here you are, back for more hell and heartache, same as me... Right?"

"I guess," she glanced at him with a small smile, "but I can hardly compare my scars to yours, dear. I mean, true, Campbell just up and left one day, but I'm not so sure I can honestly say, in retrospect, that the wounds ran all that deep or lasted that long... If I wanted to be honest with myself, I was probably more instrumental in creating the impetus for him to leave than I care to admit."

"Campbell?" he said with a quick glance and a comical frown.

"I know. It was a mistake from the start," she giggled.

"I'm not so sure nature ever intended for a guy named Campbell to be trusted in the first place," he teased her, taking his eyes off the road long enough to flash her a playful grin. "I wasn't talking about Campbell, though... I meant your parents," he clarified.

Michelle felt her head involuntarily jerk back a bit in surprise.

"My parents," she repeated with a quizzical frown, looking at him as though he were crazy. " My parents didn't 'up and leave me,' silly. They were killed in an accident. You know that," she said, almost laughing at the sheer absurdity of his statement.

"Same thing, as far as an infant's concerned, though... wouldn't ya think?" he posited, instantly elevating her curiosity level to skyrocket proportions upon realizing that he was actually serious.

"I'm not sure I'm following," she said in confusion. "What would that even have to do with my love life?"

"Well... I mean, think about it, honey. Love is love," he postulated. "So why should it hurt any less if it's your Mom who up and leaves you than if a boyfriend does it? The feeling's gotta be ten times worse, I would think."

"Yeah, but... we're talking about an infant, dear," she said with a curious frown. "Would an infant even know what was going on? Enough to even feel 'left,' much less 'betrayed' at that age — like a spurned lover?"

"Why not? Especially when ya consider that the love they get from their Mom is really about the only thing in the world they actually do know at that stage of the game. Take that away and geeziz... talk about feeling alone and stuff."

She stared at him, stunned.

"But — what I mean is, do infants even remember things? They would have to remember this... this 'breakup,' so to speak, in order to later carry the pain or... or a wariness about love into adulthood, wouldn't they?"

"Something devastating like that? Your Mom just gone one day? Why wouldn't an infant remember? Humans have everything else they've ever experienced stored away in some memory bank. Why not an experience like that?"

"But I thought — don't they say that infants are extremely resilient? Like, the way they adapt to new parents... who adopt them, for instance?"

"Yeah, but adapting and forgetting are two different things," he reminded her. "When ya adapt to a new apartment, it doesn't mean ya forget all about the old one, or that you're not aware that you were evicted and had to move, or whatever."

"My God," she said a little breathlessly after thinking about the concept for a moment, astonished by how much sense it all seemed to make, especially in light of what she herself had just said about feeling a basic distrust of love itself. She didn't know what it all meant, if anything, in relation to her dismal romantic history, but the concept of an infant learning not to trust love, or believe it was going to stick around, certainly gave her something to think about.

"What in the world even made you think of that? Of — of making that connection? To my parents, of all things?" she asked in sincere amazement, surprised to discover that he — the "insensitive" creature she had lectured only a short while ago — apparently had more of a handle on emotional issues than she'd previously assumed.

"I don't know," he replied in all honesty. "I guess when I was assuring my Mom that you didn't even remember your mother... and that ya never even knew her... I didn't really buy that myself. I'll bet you remembered her back when you were really little. Maybe not her face, or any particular moment, but her. Y'know? I don't think a kid can forget that kinda thing."

She stared at him, her mouth dropping open a bit and her chest beginning to tighten.

"And then ya probably just tucked her away in a memory bank somewhere, at some point in time, like when it felt safe enough," he rambled on, "and, if anything, ya never forgot her — just where ya stashed her, maybe," he concluded, suddenly feeling himself becoming aggravated all over again at his inability to recall where he'd stashed that damned microcontroller, now more certain than ever that he had indeed stashed it in one of his shoes and that Basilio was the reason it wasn't there anymore.

"Honey, I know ya woke up screaming this morning, but ya didn't happen to notice if the older kid was anywhere near the floor of the closet at the time, did ya?... Honey?" he asked with a quick glance. "What the — Geeziz, Michelle, what the hell are ya...? Please don't start that again, huh?" he whined in despair.

"I'm fine. I'm fine, for Pete's sake," she sniffled, frantically digging through her purse for a tissue.

"Geeziz... you know I hate that."

"Just — you just keep your eyes on the road, please," she said, rifling through his glove compartment, realizing that she'd used her last Aloe-treated tissue at the restaurant yesterday after he had managed to upset the entire table.

"If ya think we're stopping for those special ones, you're sadly mistaken," he angrily informed her, peering up at the dark, ominous sky and thinking of how much valuable drive time they'd already lost as it was.

"Nobody's asking you to stop, dear," she was quick to remind him. "Are you even paying attention to that guy up there on the left? He's either drunk or blind."

"Geeziz... What the hell is with you women, anyway," he groused in anger. "What did I even say? You _asked_ me how I made the connection, Michelle!"

"Everything is fine, dear. You're getting yourself all upset over nothing," she assured him.

"Look who's talking!" he roared, glancing over as she dabbed her eyes with the McDonald's napkin she'd found in the console between their seats, exercising extreme caution as if she'd been forced to use sandpaper.

Women. Forget the pipes. They were more like old leaky faucets beyond repair. They should all be born with a silver wrench in their mouths and a plastic bag of spare parts taped to their foreheads. That way, at least guys would have some semblance of control when one of them blew out an o-ring, he thought to himself, glancing up at the sky again, but beyond the dark, ominous clouds and through to the heavens this time, hoping somebody up there was listening and catching a clue.


	18. His Hand

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 18: His Hand_

"Y'know, I'm still angry with you, Michelle," he just wanted to be sure she was aware, realizing that it might be a little hard for her to tell after that kiss he'd just given her back in the car.

The way his arms were wrapped so tightly around her, too, could easily give her the wrong impression, he feared. "I don't want ya to think that you can get around me so easily, just by asking me to kiss ya like that," he clarified the rules and reality for her.

"Oh, I know that, dear," she sweetly allayed his concerns, gazing up through thick, sympathetic doe eyes. "I wasn't trying to get over on you. I just had this sudden urge to, umm... Well, you know how I get when I want you to kiss me," she shyly admitted with another disarming Bambi gaze, simultaneously sucking in hard on the sides of her cheeks to keep a smile from busting loose and giving herself away. "I'm not exactly a paragon of willpower when it comes to having to wait around for one, as I'm sure you must've noticed by now."

He beamed. His chest swelled. She could almost hear his macho-meter ratchet up a notch as a proud, arrogant, classic-male smirk settled in comfortably on either side of his lips and across his eyes.

Michelle knew that men had various time-honored traditions and codes they religiously followed, and that milking the Golden Upper Hand for all it was worth was among the gender's oldest, most cherished and humbly revered. But she wasn't sure if she had ever known a male who considered himself more fortunate or honored to have it bestowed upon him, no matter how short its average estimated lifespan.

The Golden Upper Hand, which her brilliant faux pas had instantly handed him on a silver platter, might as well have been one of those silly, highfalutin awards, like that Heifman trophy, or Heisman trophy, or whatever in the world they called that silly thing they gave away to basketball players — even murderous ones, like O.J. Simpson.

She stole a quick glance at his profile and had to fend off another ear-to-ear grin, thinking that he might as well be wearing a full-length, two-sided neon sandwich board that read:

"_I'm milking my position as the aggrieved party for all it's worth, and for as long as I can, because, y'see..."_

...continuing on the flip side with,

"_...I really like the way Michelle dotes and fusses and lets me have my way when she thinks I'm upset. Thank you, and have a nice day."_

"Yeah, well, I guess you have a point," he not so humbly, and even less modestly, was forced to agree after reflecting upon the other night when she had asked him to pull over and kiss her on their way to the restaurant. She did indeed seem to have a little trouble in the control department when it came to his kisses, he was forced to cede her, flinching from the unexpected stabbing zing that hit him below the belt when he did.

Their different heights and gaits caused their hip bones and thighs to bump and brush against each other's. His arms draped and encircled her torso, his fingers meeting up around her waist and entwining tightly to keep her tucked up solidly and snuggly against his side. He consciously shortened his stride by half a step to slow his pace, seeking to extend their dreamy, leisurely stroll from the car to her ground-floor apartment door for as long as he could. He felt so content and pastorally serene. He wanted the moment to last and the feeling to continue tranquilizing him. It was hard to believe how good she could make him feel, and even harder keeping up the pretense that he was still angry with her for the multi-leveled blunder she'd earlier committed.

"Y'know, just for the record, dear, I really don't expect you to get over something as traumatic as that so quickly," Michelle panderously put his mind to ease despite her knowing that he wasn't at all upset anymore; nor was he hurt, insulted, wounded, or even slightly dented.

Neither was his male ego anywhere near as bruised as he pretended it to be. If anything, it was soaring around the stratosphere from all the stroking and stoking that she'd given it on the way over; especially after the surprising, last-second, abrupt right he'd made into that little shopping strip, muttering something as he'd exited the car about how he didn't want to be held responsible for damaged epidermis, or hear about it for the rest of his life. He had returned a few minutes later with two economy-sized boxes of her Aloe-treated tissues, declaring that he was keeping one in the car and that she wasn't allowed to use them for anything but crying, which she also wasn't allowed to do anymore.

Michelle had the funniest feeling that he hadn't purchased the tissues for the purpose of sparing himself grief so much as he had done it for her. She also couldn't help but wonder if his reference to "the rest of his life" had been muttered figuratively or literally, consciously or sub-consciously.

But, no, he wasn't feeling the least bit crushed anymore, she could tell; nor did he seem the least bit downtrodden, rejected, neglected, or needy. Just wanty. The man wanted it all — all that his almighty Golden Upper Hand entitled him to.

With Upper Hand in hand, he wanted to sit back and luxuriate in male-pig heaven, feasting on his unbridled power, like Henry VIII at a backyard barbeque the size of Europe.

With remote control in Upper Hand, he wanted to click on the ballgame, should the mood happen to strike, and without any lip from the old lady, either. He wanted her to spring up and fetch him a beer; to make him a sandwich without his asking; to serve as his personal couch pillow while he watched the game; and to do so without his having to hear, much less answer, bizarre questions, like why they don't have a rule against spitting; who keeps the "lawn" looking so nice; and why they're allowed to steal bases when stealing sets such a poor example for children.

In short, he wanted her to curry favor with him and cater to his every whim, desire, and need, with the hope of eventually winning his generous forgiveness for having wronged him by thinking that he'd only been trying to wangle sex out of her all weekend.

Michelle had to chuckle to herself. If only he knew how much she enjoyed fussing, fawning and doting on him anyway. But, then again, she understood and appreciated how no amount of her own unprompted doting could possibly compare to the excitement and fun of wielding his Upper Hand around; of watching it perform for him, like a hybrid of Luke Skywalker's Jedi saber and Cinderella's Fairy Godmother's wand.

"It's not like I wanna keep beating a dead horse, or anything, you understand," he said.

"You?" Michelle actually managed to perish the thought with a straight face. "Don't be silly, honey. You don't have to explain why you're still upset... Anyone in your shoes would feel the same way. I realize that," she tenderly slathered him with an overload of affection, which, if it were butter, would instantly clog his arteries and likely kill him right there in his tracks.

"I'm glad you appreciate how fragile a commodity 'trust' is, Michelle," he continued, not to beat a dead horse, or anything.

"No one could possibly be more acutely aware of that than me," she admitted in a somber, humbled tone, hurriedly pulling up the mental laundry list of violations she knew he was hinting for her to recite again. "After all, I mean... I'm the one who actually doubted you, dear... and questioned your honor, and your... your..."

"Integrity," he helped her out.

"... your integrity, and hurt your feelings, and, umm..."

"Worried..."

"..._worried_ you half to death," she condoled him with remorse. "And then there was the crying, which I know upsets you," she introduced to the list for the very first time.

Good answer, he thought. She had done well. He hadn't expected that new addition, either, which had come as a complete and pleasant surprise. He liked that. He let her know with a slow, reflective nod of his chin while gazing off into the distance for just the briefest of moments, as if looking bravely ahead, into the future, where hope always sprang eternal of someday becoming whole again.

"I can't imagine the kind of thoughts that must've been running through your head," she self-tsked. "You must've thought I had completely lost my marbles..."

"That was the only thing I was ever really concerned about, y'know, Michelle... Your health," he heroically and selflessly disclosed.

"Really?" she gazed at him, going for the awash-with-undying-gratitude look and hoping she wasn't overplaying it. There was nothing worse than an over-the-top execution of the awash-with-undying-gratitude look, in her personal opinion. It always went over about as well as a corduroy purse with silk suit.

"Of course," he reiterated as though she were crazy if she thought that anything else on her laundry list could possibly have mattered to him, his ongoing pain and suffering strictly beside the point.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for ruining — well, you know," she sighed with contrition, worry lines crisscrossing themselves into her clenched brow.

"No, honey. What?" he asked.

"Oh, _you_ know," she said as though convinced he was only pulling her leg and pretending not to know, just to give her a hard time about it all.

"No, tell me," he gently encouraged her with growing curiosity and concern, bringing them both to a momentary halt and angling her more face-forward to him.

"The, umm... you know, the way I went and ruined the memories of all those exquisite hours we had together," she self-loathingly lamented, saturating her voice in shame and melancholy, then going in for the kill with a slow upturn of sorrow-hemorrhaging Bambi eyes.

His head cocked hard to the side in sync with the punch that her words and eyes had delivered square to his chest.

"Aww, honey, you didn't do that," he tenderly comforted her, eyes transforming on the spot into bottomless pools of sympathy. "Nothing could ever ruin even a second of any of that," he promised her, leaning in to nuzzle his lips against hers for a few heart-melting, gut-tingling seconds before softly adhering to them.

As he delivered Part Two of that long, tender, soul-satiating kiss he'd given her back in the car, he could swear he heard the rich, albeit faint, sound of orchestral music rising up from the earth beneath him.

His hands moved up to her face to cup her cheeks — her baby cheeks, as he secretly called them. He hadn't verbalized his pet name for them just yet, for fear it might conjure images of actual babies and possibly spook her. Their relationship itself was only still in its infancy stage, and with everything moving along at such a lightning-fast clip, he figured she already had plenty on her mind without having to ponder a subject like that.

"Okay?" he checked with her, securing a nod and a grateful smile before drawing her in as closely and tightly as society was likely to accept, given they were out in the wide open with a long, 2-story row of apartment windows staring them down.

Not until they'd begun to stroll again did he realize that the orchestral music had been coming from the open window of a neighbor who was evidently watching "Gone with the Wind" on DVD.

"'Exquisite,' huh," he repeated the word with a crooked smile, a little bowled over by her choice of adjectives from all that had been available to her.

"For me, at least," she gushed, flashing him a shy, but seductive, smile.

"It was, huh," he proudly smirked, sounding as though it wouldn't kill him if she were to elaborate further.

He felt drunk in love. Their long, gentle, intoxicating kiss had washed through him like equal parts of adrenaline and anesthetic, leaving him feeling wildly animated and serenely numb at the same time. He felt like he was in a dream state. His head was swimming, similar in sensation to the "exquisite" way he would always feel lying beside her in bed, tightly wound in one another's assorted lips and digits and limbs and luxuriating in that stupefying state of orgasmic aftershock; that magical magma-meltdown moment that always left his body shaking and his mind about as functional as putty.

As he followed her up two steps to her apartment's yellow exterior door, he thought of how badly he wanted to get her home and out of her clothes and back into his bed, where she belonged. He ached to have her fall apart in his arms again, running a quick mental review of some of his favorite, most cherished highlights of their time together. It still stunned him to think that Michelle was now his; that he had actually found his "it." For every Jack there was only one Jill and she was his — his Robin's Marion, his Arthur's Guinevere, his Rett's Scarlett, his Tarzan's Jane.

Damned if he hadn't hit that Tarzan thing square on the head with the check he had issued from the Bank of Almeida.

"I was just thinking, dear," Michelle said as she fiddled with her key ring, enjoying the tune he was softly humming — "Gone with the Wind," if she wasn't mistaken.

"Me, too," he softly sighed against her ear, standing behind her with arms around her waist and hands trying their hardest to behave themselves. "If I ever call you 'Jane' by mistake at that, umm... key moment, consider it a compliment," he advised.

She paused for the briefest of nanoseconds and frowned, wondering what Chris's wife, Jane, would be doing on his mind at a time like that, particularly given how unattractive he said he had always found her.

Having no idea what he was talking about, she returned to her task of systematically unlocking her wide variety of bolts and barriers.

"I was just thinking," she continued as though he had never even spoken, "I was thinking that — well, I don't know if you had anything in mind for tonight, but I thought maybe we could just stay home. Perhaps order in some Chinese food, or something," she suggested. "If that's okay with you, of course."

"Sure, baby," he generously gifted her with his consent, strategically pressing himself lightly against her, just enough to subtly notify her of the physical condition she always managed to leave him in.

As he did, a warning signal rose up from his internal control tower, telling him that unless he reactivated his omnipotent Upper Hand, he'd be handing it over to her in forfeiture — gift wrapped, at the rate he was going. His male instinct, on the other hand, was telling him to screw his Hand and fall to his knees, instead, thanking her profusely for wanting the same long, quiet, naked evening at home that he was literally aching for at that point.

Fully cognizant of his weakened state, but determined not to forfeit his golden digits in disgrace, he rapidly pulled his senses together and resigned himself to bucking up, getting a grip, and maneuvering his Hand like a man.

"I just want it to be us, okay?"

"We can do that," he promptly folded, though trying not to sound too deliriously ecstatic as he followed her through the door, which opened directly into a reasonably spacious living room. "Provided one thing," he added, this time with a slightly more authoritative, less lovestruck tone, just in case she thought he had suddenly gone soft on her, which he had. "That ya don't take forever getting your stuff together, y'hear? We're already gonna get stuck in traffic as it is, once those skies open up. And you know how people get in a torrential downpour."

"I know. I will," she said with an appreciative smile. "But I do have —"

"Everybody suddenly starts driving like they're eighty," he railed a little, for effect, figuring that yelling could only help to fortify his Hand's stronghold. "I don't know what it is about people and rain," he grumbled onward, rubbing the back of his neck as if pinpointing the precise spot he just knew he'd be getting a crick from sitting in traffic forever.

"I just need a few extra minutes to change my clothes," she explained. "I'm sure you've pretty much had it with looking at me in this dress."

"Well, just — just hurry it up, then," he said with aggravation and a frown, watching her glance back at him with a soft smile. "And for the record, I like that dress," he wanted to add, but was sure to do so a little grumpily.

"You're just saying that because you know I made it," she self-consciously deduced and grinned before sweeping through a door that he assumed led into her bedroom.

Although dying to crawl on his knees behind her, he resisted the burning temptation, taking a deep breath, instead, and darting his eyes around the room.

"That's only one of the reasons I like it," he reassured her, drinking in the layout and decor, focusing on the details, and formulating his first impressions.

It only took a second to realize that he'd never stood in a room quite so clean in his life. If the president of the United States were to require emergency life-saving surgery, the doctors could cut the man open right there on the spot and never think twice about infection setting in.

"So? What do you think?" Michelle called out to him from the bedroom.

"It's, uhh... it's really nice," he replied, his subconscious encouraging his hands to slide into the front pockets of his jeans, therein greatly diminishing his chances of touching anything.

But it really was nice, he thought, the frightening level of cleanliness aside. He liked it a lot. Everything was very streamlined and in surprising conformity with his own taste; only she had some antique pieces mixed in here and there, which actually looked pretty good.

What he really liked most, and was greatly relieved to find, was that it wasn't the least bit pink or phoofie-looking. He'd always felt uncomfortable in girlie-leaning environments. Nina's place had been that way, much to his enormous shock. He'd always seen her as a bit of a stiff and very much on the regimented side, and had therefore expected to find a primarily barren, austere living space, with snooty artwork, muted grey hues, imposing coffee table books by photographers he'd never even heard of before, and new age music seeping out from strategically positioned speakers the size of hearing aid batteries.

Instead, he had found himself on a frilly, flowery bedspread surrounded by a ton of stuffed animals and dolls from her youth, all of which he instantly detested, one more passionately than the other. It seemed so paradoxical to everything he thought he had known about her.

But then again, no one could say that they'd ever really known Nina.

He was tempted to shove her memory out of his mind with the same force that he sometimes still wished he could apply directly to her jaw with his fist. But he let it linger there for a moment longer, feeling it cathartic to compare just a fleeting recollection of his and Nina's relationship to the love he now shared with Michelle.

"You sound like you're just being polite," Michelle called out with a lilt of laughter resonating in her voice.

"Nah, I mean it, honey. It's very nice. It's, umm... it's really clean, too."

Scary clean. It was the kind of clean that made men a little nervous. He wondered if this might be a problem down the road. He had the funny feeling that if he were to pick something up, he might well find himself catching some heat for leaving his fingerprints on it.

"My housekeeper is German, from the old country. She likes things spotless and orderly. She's extremely fastidious."

"I see that," he answered lightly and casually, though reeling with internal horror at the thought of neat-freak Michelle learning at the feet of an older, wiser, high-holy mentor from Dusseldorf.

Something about the concept more than mildly alarmed him to the point where he could swear he felt the hair on his arms beginning to stir. He wondered if it were even safe to pair two people like that together. Something felt wrong about it, in a cosmic sort of way. They could conceivably collide in a hallway while trying to out-clean each other, and their industrial-strength cleaning fluids could accidentally intermix and permanently alter the natural harmony and order of the earth.

His fear was far from irrational or unfounded, too, since Michelle, after all, had history in this area; she had already blown out the brick wall of her high school building under chillingly similar circumstances involving a number of common household agents, one of which had been an industrial floor cleaner, if memory served.

He made a mental note to ditch Broomhilda and keep Mrs. Sanchez after he and Michelle were married.

"I can't tell if she's been here yet, so you might even get to meet her," Michelle announced.

"That would be nice," he gratuitously replied.

That would be a disaster, he instinctively knew, having already decided to meet the wunderkind for the first time approximately sixty seconds prior to signing her severance check.

He wanted to have a closer look at the bookcases that were cut directly into the wall, caddy-cornered and framing her couch, which was another look he liked a lot. There was just enough room between the bookshelves and couch's back and sides to comfortably stand and browse, which he thought was another nice feature.

On his way over for a closer look, he thought about taking a peek at the level of cleanliness going on in the kitchen, then beat himself up a little for chickening out at the last second. Jack would've gone in, he knew. He probably would've been just as spooked, but he would've gone in. That was the difference between Jack and every other field operative out there: when push came to shove, Jack was fearless. It was really just as simple as that.

"There's stuff in the refrigerator, if you like," she called out to him.

"Nah, I'm good. Are ya moving in there, or what?" he called back with a light whine, feeling it was getting to be around that time to bark again, for Upper Hand's sake.

"I'm just finishing up a honey-and-almond exfoliation, dear, and after that is just a quickie moisture-surge under the eyes. It only takes a second," she promised.

He was really glad he had asked.

"Well, just keep it moving," he snarled, thinking about the impending rain. "Time and tide waiteth for no man, y'know," he added, having no idea what that had to do with anything. But it was the only sage phrase he could come up with at the moment, and since "tide" had to do with water, and water with rain, he left it at that.

The built-in shelves showcased the types of books he would expect her to own, along with myriad decorative items, art pieces, and some memorabilia from her personal past, like framed pictures and sewing trophies and such.

He reached for a silver-framed five-by-seven of Michelle standing beside a boy he recognized as her brother, Danny, and in front of two middle-aged women, whom he assumed to be her aunts. He could immediately see where Michelle had gotten her extreme femininity gene; both aunts, though not necessarily the best looking women ever placed on the planet, were groomed immaculately and ultra-femininely, with soft pastel and flowery dresses, pearls and done-up hair, and all those other little appointments that seemed to give some women a softer appearance than others. He was sure he could bet the ranch, with confidence, that neither had ever owned, nor worn, a pair of pants in their lives.

An ear-to-ear grin shot across his face as he zeroed in on Michelle, somewhere around eleven years old, the best that he could figure. He felt his heart tenderizing inside his chest, like a slab of sirloin immersed in a vat of high-octane marinade, at the sight of her frizzy hair, clunky glasses, baby cheeks, and those dazzling white teeth, which she had yet to fully grow into at the time the photo had been snapped. He immediately foresaw a vision of himself with a daughter that age someday, sitting on his lap and weeping into his shoulder about how none of the boys liked her; refusing to believe him when he assured her that she would be blossoming into a breathtaking, reddish-haired beauty, just like her mother, before she knew it.

No sooner had he replaced the frame on the shelf when he abruptly snatched it back to wipe away any fingerprints, DNA, or other trace evidence that could connect him to the crime.

He was just about to call out to her and suggest that she wear that blue thing with that black thing to the office tomorrow, which he'd always liked, when the thought struck: he wondered not only which outfit she was busily packing, but how many. They hadn't discussed the logistics of life, come Monday morning, compelling him to wonder how they would travel to work tomorrow, and how much of a secret, if at all, they should keep their relationship, considering he was planning on asking her to marry him anyway... only she didn't know that yet.

He further wondered what she was thinking about in there. She must've already decided by now whether to pack enough clothes for a day or a week. She must've considered, too, whether she wanted to drive herself to his apartment, so she could arrive at CTU in her own car tomorrow morning.

Two things immediately leapt into his mind. They were the only two things that he knew for certain: One was that he couldn't even imagine sleeping a night without her beside him, now; the other was that he knew he didn't want her to give up her apartment and move in with him.

There was something about living together, as opposed to marriage, that had always struck him as cheap. It was like the guy was taking the woman out for a test drive first, to see if he liked her enough to actually make an investment in her. It was inherently insulting, and Michelle was way too good for that. She wasn't the type of woman who shacked up with a guy, and he didn't want people viewing her that way. She was lady-like, and smart and professional, and had baby cheeks and curls, like cherubs, and he wanted everything to be dignified and legitimate. He wanted her to have a wedding band, like millions of other women out there; to be seen as the car that you didn't test drive, but the one you knew had been custom-designed; the one you slapped money down on the table for, without thinking twice about it or ever regretting it for a second.

He decided, there on the spot, to grab the first ring he could get his hands on tomorrow.

"Y'got that surge-thing done yet?" he called out to her, impatiently.

"I'm just throwing on a little mascara to make myself feel human," she replied. "I'll just be another second, dear."

Which star system's time measure she was using to calculate her ETA's was anyone's guess.

"Getting stuck in that rain isn't exactly gonna help me shake this anger off, y'know, Michelle," he hated to remind her. "I've already been through enough aggravation for one day," he added, not to beat a dead horse, or anything.

"I know, dear," she called back. "I was just thinking that very same thing."

"Yeah, well... perhaps a little less thinking and little more hustling, huh?" he strongly recommended, mentally polishing his Upper Hand and pausing to admiring its rich golden luster. "I might as well be hanging outside a dressing room while you try on half the store, at this point — which you'd better never do to me, by the way," he decided to inject, as long as he was already on the subject.

"I'll remember," she soothed him. "Why dont' you just —"

"I _hate_ that, Michelle," he stated for future reference.

"All men do, dear. I know. Don't worry," she said, easing his fabricated fears. "Why don't you just look around a bit?"

"What's going on in there, anyway? Are ya packing enough for a two-week vacation?" he heavily hinted, leaning a little harder on the "two week" portion of his whine.

"I wasn't sure what I'd be in the mood to wear, so I thought I'd better pack a couple of things, just in case I still have trouble deciding in the morning," she explained. "I'm trying to be thorough, too," she added, "figuring you'd rather have me invest a few more minutes now than have to drive that full circle because I'd forgotten a shoe."

He beamed. Her excuse for packing a few days' worth of clothes was the perfect way to ensure that she had enough stuff, but without seeming presumptuous or committal one way or the other. Very smart and diplomatic of her, and crafty and shrewd, he thought, making a quick mental note to watch out for that in the future.

Two shelves down he spied a small white porcelain frame, only about two inches square, if even that. His eyes welled up as he brought the image closer to his face. The prettiest, most angelic three- or four-year-old stared back at him, with long, curly, strawberry-blonde hair. She was dressed in a pink-and-white checkered dress, with a white apron sewn onto the waist, standing on a lawn in what he assumed to be her aunts' yard. He chuckled at the way she was looking at lens and nervously tugging her fingers as if worried she was about to be literally shot, instead of figuratively. Whomever had taken the photo must've asked her to stand still so he or she could "get a good shot." He smiled even wider at the sight of one of her knee socks, which had fallen and bunched around her ankle, her leg too skinny to keep it up. He remembered always constantly having to pull Olivia's knee socks up for the same reason.

For a second it felt like he was looking through a window into the future and catching a glimpse of his daughter; or at least he hoped that if he and Michelle were ever to have a daughter, she'd look exactly like the cherub staring up at him from the photo.

Just as he was about to wipe away his fingerprints and other associated trace evidence, he stopped short for a beat, deciding to shove the photograph, frame and all, into his jacket pocket instead.

He was on his way over to the adjourning bookcase to see if he could find any more pictures when a rush of adrenaline hit him like a cannonball to the chest. An inner danger siren had sounded out of nowhere, sending his shoulder blades slamming up hard against the inner caddy corner of the bookcase, providing him cover.

Every minute of training throughout his career was telling him that something was wrong.


	19. Her Hero

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 19: Her Hero_

Tony looked at the 9mm already in his hand, unconscious of even having drawn it, but his speed of draw nonetheless serving, as it always did, to give him an approximate measure of the threat level afoot.

His brain instantaneously replayed the last few seconds. Something had flashed peripherally. His eye had picked it up and his body had robotically reacted, sending him diving backwards for the scant cover of the caddy-cornered shelves.

The first thought that had flashed through his mind was the 2004 silver Mitsubishi Montero SUV with California plates, which had begun to tail him the minute he'd pulled out of his building's parking lot earlier. Tony had ditched it with surprisingly little difficulty, but he was still certain that it had indeed been tailing him; that it wasn't something he had simply misread. For one thing, the driver had been careful to keep himself tucked back behind the standard three car lengths and had made all the usual moves, as well, to keep his plates carefully concealed. Tony had only been lucky when he'd noticed the California tags at the last split second, when the SUV had veered onto a side street after apparently sensing that he had been made.

Now Tony found himself realizing that if the presence in the room was, indeed, the same Mitsubishi perp, the guy would've had to have scoped out Michelle's alarm system and entryway at some earlier point in order to have entered so seamlessly, now, without having made so much as a sound.

With his heart clipping at twice the recommended rate, his back still firmly against the wall, and his semi-automatic perched to come out spitting fire, Tony's first instinct was to call out a warning to Michelle. But he resisted, fearing that it might do more to provoke, than deter, the intruder to act before he had even gotten a fix on the guy's location.

Sweat increasing and hands clenched tightly around the grip, he raised his weapon up from its five o'clock position and cautiously peered around the corner, requiring only a second to soak in the full layout.

The presence was indeed still in the room.

Tony felt it in his every molecule.

He tasted it.

He just needed a visual lock on it, now.

His brain studied the mental snapshot that his eyes had just taken, scanning for an alternate position to take up, with a better visual advantage and hopefully more cover than the caddy corner just barely offered. He settled on a position in the far-south quadrant, over by the windows, noting that a wing chair positioned at the midway mark would at least create a modicum of cover in the events bullets began to fly before he had reached his final destination.

Another peripheral flash... this one a little more to the right...

His firearm instantly snapped in the movement's direction, like metal to a magnet, his eyes moving in tandem. Though the target continued to remain well-cloaked, at least Tony had secured its basic location. But his instincts were ordering him to hold his fire, so he watched and listened for another few seconds, patiently awaiting a "go" from his gut.

"Has Fluff-Fluff introduced himself to you, yet, dear?" Michelle's voice rang out sweetly from her room.

Tony's jaw dropped down to his chest, followed by his weapon to his side, as he alternated between sighs of relief and disbelief, watching the perp casually stroll out from behind an antique trunk.

It was a big, fat, pure-white, furry-looking creature, with searing blue eyes, which Tony could only assume was a cat, though couldn't swear to it, since he'd never seen one quite that fat before.

He watched the thing as it took its sweet time waddling over and halting only inches away from him, staring up, directly into his eyes, with an attitude.

"Be a good cookie-boy for Mommy and say hello!" Michelle called out again, this time in a radically altered voice, with a heavy-duty cooing quality embedded deeply within. He prayed she hadn't been talking to him.

Sweating like a beast from the aftereffects of the adrenaline rush, Tony dropped his revolver onto the couch and tore his jacket off, still engaged in the eyeball war with the fat, white furry thing. He scowed under his breath, waiting for it to fearfully scamper away, the way cats on TV always did whenever threatened or intimidated. But this cat just continued looking him over like he had leprosy, or exceptionally poor taste in clothing, or was nuts if he thought he was taking "Mommy" away from the apartment without a fight this time.

He'd never been a big fan of cats. Every one of them he'd ever come across had always struck him as unnecessarily snotty. There was nothing huggable or comical about them, like dogs, or the least bit friendly that he could see. There was also no fun to be had with a feline, he'd decided long ago after tossing a frisbee at a neighbor cat that had strolled into the yard one afternoon while he had been home on military leave. The cat had similarly stared him down, as though he'd had some kind of nerve haphazardly tossing a foreign element at him like that, which could've easily put an eye out. Tony, in fact, recalled feeling convinced at the time that if the cat could talk, it would've told him that he desperately needed to get a life, or grow up, or at the very least, find a slightly more productive hobby than tossing circular plastic discs around, for seemingly no logical reason and certainly no effect or result.

"What the hell did ya just call that thing?" he hollered out at coincidentally the same moment Michelle came breezing in to deliver her tapestry overnight bag to him.

"He's not a 'thing,'" she immediately and defensively tsk-ed, dropping the bag and rushing to scoop the big, fat, white monstrosity into her maternal embrace. "He's a schweet little cookie-boy who missed his Mommy. _Yesssssh_... Yessssh, he _did_. Mommy can tell," she kissy-faced and cooed the cat in one of those whacko-pet-owner voices, which wasted no time in sending a chill careening through him.

Please, Lord, no. Not Michelle. Please don't let her turn out to be one of those crazy cat-people, Tony silently begged, calling upon every god and high-holy figure he could think of, from Jesus to Zeus to Buddha to Hare Krishna and Billy Graham, envisioning himself someday in a t-shirt she would make him wear, with an idiotic cartoon of a cat on the front and a saying encased within a thought bubble that was twice as moronic as the picture. At that point, he'd be left with no other choice but to eat a bullet, much the way a disgraced Samurai ritualistically gutted himself with own sword for the sake of preserving his family's honor.

"That doesn't answer my question," he grumbled, immediately sorry he had ever asked after Michelle repeated the name "Fluff-Fluff" with that bone-chilling, sing-songy coo ringing in her voice.

"And he's not an 'it.' He's a he" she sternly rebuked him before returning to her demented cat conversation. "_Yesshhh._ Isn't that right, pumpkin chops? Mommy's little Fluff-Fluff is a cookie-boy, not an 'it'... Yesh, he _izzzzz... Yessshhh..._"

There wasn't even any such thing as a pumpkin chop, Tony frowned in pain and disgust, making an executive decision on the spot to immediately impregnate her on their honeymoon night, possibly before he'd even gotten his clothes off, in the hopes that a human son might make her lose interest in her fat-as-hell facsimile. Tony could then sneak the thing out of the house and over to the Animal Shelter some afternoon while Michelle was tied up with the real baby, and with any luck, she wouldn't even notice the thing was missing until their kid left the nest for kindergarten. By that time, he figured, the cat would be old enough for him to invent a plausible lie about it having died of natural causes mere days earlier, and how he had selflessly buried it in the backyard, under the cloak of the darkness, to spare her the heartache of having to see her beloved, faithful companion laid to its eternal rest.

"Why'd ya give it a name like that?" he came back to reality and asked, wincing on behalf of all malekind. "Is he gay, or something?" he innocently added, recalling having read somewhere that the animal kingdom had gays, too. He remembered that fact because it had compelled him to wonder at the time if plant life had gays, as well.

"Of course he's not gay. What kind of an absurd question is that?" Michelle scowled. "For your information, he just happens to be the son of the two-time Best-of-Breed Grand Champion Himalayan 'Catzmeow Royal Sultan Fluff-Fluff.' Perhaps you've _heard_ of him?" she curtly inquired, as though the news had dominated headlines coast-to-coast at the time.

Tony thought it only fair to take a brief moment to glance up to God and warn Him that if Michelle turned out to be one of those head cases who entered their cats into shows, He'd be smart to fire up His infinite wisdom and find Himself a really good place to lay low for awhile, lest He wished to find his infallible butt riddled with 9mm bullet holes.

"How could that mean man say such a thing about Mommy's schweet little macho bunny-boy, hmmm?" she asked the thing with a sympathetic, oogly-googly voice as she carried its fatness back to the bedroom with her. "Did you hear the way the mean man speaks to your Mommy?... Hmmm?... Is that a polite way to talk?" her voice trailed off as Tony's hand moved up to his stomach, hoping the sick sensation was only temporary and not the early warning signs of a new and deadly Asian flu.

He quickly snatched the tapestry bag and headed for the front door, feeling the sudden need for a little air. He paused at the window first to scan the perimeter for loitering 2004 Mitsubishi Montero SUV's before approaching the door.

"Perfect, Michelle! It's raining now!" she heard the mean man roar out a bulletin, like some kind of TV weatherman-turned-serial-killer, scaring her bunny-boy half to death with the thunderous pitch and volume of his voice. "Ya sure you've got everything?" he roared again, gesticulating with the tapestry bag, as if she could even see it from inside her room. "We're not coming back for some... some eyelid surger ya can't live without. I'm telling ya that right now!"

"I've already double-checked," she calmly called back with the patience of a saint, listening to him jostling the locks and muttering things about "going to get the car" and how she'd "better be ready" when he pulled up, and not to forget that he was "already still angry with her" as it was.

"Just be careful Fluff-Fluff doesn't run out the door," she called out as Tony watched the white fur ball shoot past him, like a flash of fat lightning, straight out into the great wilderness.

"Uhh..." was all he could think to say as Michelle emerged from the bedroom and froze in her tracks. Horrified at the sight of the door wide open, she quickly put two and two together.

"Well... don't just _stand_ there! Go _after_ him!" she shreiked, hurriedly explaining in a complete panic that Fluff-Fluff wasn't an outdoor cat; that he didn't have any front claws and therefore couldn't defend himself against the marauding gang of strays that hung out on the next block; how he'd wound up with six stitches in his ear after they had mugged him the last time he'd gotten loose. "Go! _Go now!_" she wailed, half in tears, as Tony stared out at the cold rain.

"Can't we just leave a revolver on the doorstep for him?" he suggested, hoping to calm her hysteria with a little light humor, but coming up a bit short of his goal.

"Oh... Oh, _never mind!_" Michelle wailed in tears, darting out into the rain herself at a speed rivaled only by her bunny-boy's escape.

Before Tony could even react, she was already scurrying in and out between parked cars, wearing nothing but a longish kind of lightweight, flowy dress, with a thin little cardigan sweater she had decided to slip on at the last minute while dressing, knowing how chilly the air always got after a rainfall.

Somebody had to have put some kind of voodoo curse on him. Tony was convinced of it by the time he'd caught up with her, only to now have to literally pull her along by the wrist behind him, the rain driving down and picking up speed with every passing second, it seemed. A voodoo curse was the only logical explanation to be had.

"Dry yourself off and stay in there, for cryssake! I'll find it!" he insisted from the doorstep after depositing her inside.

He shut the door behind himself a little harder than he had intended to and headed back into the cold, driving rain.

"He's not an 'it'!" he heard her faint, muffled wail from behind the closed door as he turned his collar up and peered around for the fat white freak.

Michelle fretted as she rubbed the rain from her hair with a bath towel, dividing her time between nervously pacing the floor and visiting the window.

She tried not to worry. After all, Tony had extremely sharp field instincts, she reminded herself a thousand times over. He'd had excellent, specialized training as a Marine, not to even mention Quantico and his years of tactical field experience as a Fed. He was a former sharpshooter, as well, with eyes that knew where and how to look and focus and scrutinize. If anybody could zero in on her poor, defenseless cookie-boy, it was him.

"I can't find it," Tony snarled minutes later as he burst through the door, soaking wet and thoroughly annoyed.

Michelle instantly broke down in tears.

"Did you call out to him?" she cried.

"Huh?"

"Fluff-Fluff! His _name!_" she bellowed. "Did you call out his _name?"_

"Uhh... no," Tony truthfully responded, horrified by even the thought of running around in public, hollering "Fluff-Fluff" in full throat. Not only was it conduct unbefitting a former Marine Lieutenant, but he was certain it would affect his sperm count for life.

"What do you mean, 'no'?" she railed in mental agony. "You have to call out his _name!_ How is he going to know you're even looking for him if you don't call out his name!"

"I can't do that, Michelle," he calmly, but sternly, enlightened her. "The Marines have an unwritten code against that kinda public behavior."

She could barely breathe, she was so upset with him, snatching the yellow slicker that hung on the antique coat rack to the side of the door.

"All right, all right!" he angrily relented, tugging his soaking collar back into position as she returned her slicker to the hook and yanked the door open for him, trying to control her bottom lip from quivering itself clear off her face. "But if the local Marine recruitment branch calls, tell them that I'm..."

"_Just go!_" she barked like a rabid dog.

In truth, he preferred going out there again, himself, rather than having her running around in the event that SUV was laying in stealth somewhere.

He had also just had a mental flash of his Golden Upper Hand slipping directly through his fingers. If the cat got hurt, or lost for good, Michelle would be the one wielding the Hand with more than ample, legitimate reason, completely wrecking the grand plans he'd already devised for the afternoon.

Thoroughly annoyed to find himself hitting the soaking-wet streets again, but wholly determined and committed to heroically bringing the damned thing back this time, Tony peered east and west, wondering where he himself might go if he were a gay cat.

He headed east upon spying an alley about half a block away. "Alley cat" was a common phrase. The alley made logical sense. He also scanned the trees along the way, recalling images in childhood storybooks of firefighters with hook-and-ladders, rescuing kittens out of trees. That fat freak was going to be in a load of trouble if Tony ended up having to shimmy up a tree, which he hadn't been forced to do since Quantico. At least Mommy's gay boy had white fur, which was the easiest color to spot, he comforted himself as he got on all fours to check beneath a row of cars, soaking the knees of his jeans in the process.

Call his name. Yeah, right. No way was he calling out that name. He'd rather die at the hands of terrorist interrogators than flagrantly, egregiously violate the unwritten, unspoken, time-honored Marines code in such a manner.

"Get out here, goddammit, ya dopey, flea-bitten piece-a—" he roared aloud in utter frustration into the grey, dreary distance. "Show yourself before I kick your fat—"

He was shocked when he heard a gay-like "mew" emanate from the alley in prompt response to his direct order. It had taken him by complete surprise. He wasn't at all accustomed to having a Dessler obey a direct order. He was even more shocked when he scooped the thing up from behind a couple of trash cans and realized that, with its fur soaked and matted down, it actually weighed about fifty pounds less than it looked when its fur was all poofed out, like a sissy-boy.

Tony quickly examined the skinny, shivering body for blood or signs of attack. Satisfied that the thing hadn't been "mugged" again, he deposited it inside his jacket, leaving only enough buttons open for its head to stick out.

"I should kick your butt for upsetting your mother like that!" he grumbled angrily, as if finally locating a wayward teenaged son he'd just spent the past 24 hours searching the neighborhood for, high and low.

Michelle had heard him hollering at Fluff-Fluff from a half a block away and, though grateful to no end that he'd found her little pumpkin chop, nevertheless prayed that her neighbors were all out buying shoes for their children and missing the spectacle. She knew he would find Fluff-Fluff this time around. She had seen a commitment in his eyes that hadn't been present the first time out.

Recognizing a premiere dote-fuss opportunity when she saw one, she quickly scooted around the apartment, laying some dry bath towels out and preparing to make a hot pot of coffee. She changed it to hot cocoa, instead, remembering his fondness for chocolate. It would flatter and please him, she knew, to know that she was studying him and picking up on his likes so quickly.

She was also sure that he must be worried half-sick by now about losing his precious Golden Upper Hand to her after carelessly allowing Fluff-Fluff to get out like that, and she wanted to reassure him that the opposite had just occurred; that his heroic rescue of her cookie-boy had at least doubled, if not tripled, the mystical power and might of his Hand.

"For a cat with no claws, he managed to do enough damage!" Tony roared, exploding in from the rain and unbuttoning the soaking creature into its Mommy's arms. "I'm bleeding here, Michelle! One more bite and I was gonna have to draw my weapon and defend myself!" he informed her, foisting out his hand to show her the scratch as proof.

His head actually snapped back in shock when he saw her immediately drop the soaking-wet cat to its feet and come rushing to his own aid, fretting and fussing like Opie's Aunt Bea on amphetamines.

He stared down at the cat who was already staring up at him with more shock and confusion on its face than he himself had on his own. The thing looked a little annoyed, too. Even jealous. Tony would've snickered in its face if he didn't feel it would compromise his ability to project severe pain.

"Oh, _please_ don't let this have to be stitched," she purposely prayed to herself aloud, brushing away the single drop of blood on the top of his hand that had already crusted over. "All I need is to be sitting in an emergency room all afternoon..." she continued aloud to herself, her voice reeking of dread and gloom.

"I don't need any stitches, honey. Don't worry," his voice softened, seeking to allay her worst nightmares. "It's not that bad..."

"Yes, well... I think I'll just be the judge of that, thank you," she said, executing a perfect harried-and-annoyed, allowing her elbow to not-so-accidentally knock a towel down from it's perch on the shoulder of the chair, knowing how much Fluff-Fluff liked to roll around in them, which would simultaneously dry him off at least enough until she could tend to him properly. "If it were up to you men, you'd be walking around with bullets inside you, claiming that everything was fine and dandy, and that it was nothing but a scratch," she tsked as if completely ticked off, hustling him toward the kitchen.

Panicking as he approached the doorway, he thought of what Jack would do at a time like this: He would take a deep breath and forge straight ahead, Tony knew.

"Come in under the light where I can get a decent look at this," Michelle nudged him forward after he had come to a dead standstill at the kitchen's doorway.

He hadn't even meant to stop; something reflexive had kicked in when the first blast of gleaming stainless steel had assaulted his irises. His mind seemed to have been somehow tricked into thinking that he was back in Marine Medic Training, where the first thing he'd been taught was never enter an operating room without scrubbing up first.

"Can we please get this under some running water, before I end up having to deal with a raging infection?" she muttered as if only barely able to tolerate the inherent recklessness of the man's daredevil heroics.

"I'm gonna drip all over the place," he heard his voice croak, shocked to see that after she had gotten him out of his ringing wet jacket, she'd simply dropped it, with a loud, wet splat, directly onto the floor.

"Well, it looks like you've gotten yourself off easy," she announced after positioning him under the ceiling's track light and closely examining his scratch. "Where else are you bleeding? Tell the truth," she demanded to know, quickly opening a few buttons on his shirt to examine his chest and stomach area. "I'd love you to at least _try_ to be a little less reckless in the field," she gently scolded him, elevating his cat-search to the danger and importance levels of a field operation.

"There wasn't very much I could do about it, with it fighting me like a wild animal, y'know," he slightly exaggerated as she flipped the faucet on and finessed it into a warm, gentle stream.

Tony glanced at the creature now standing in the doorway and glaring up at him, its fur sticking out in a thousand different damp directions after rolling and romping around on the towel.

As if she had so many things to do all at once—with one task just as vitally important and urgent as the next—racing to beat the clock before the man up and expired, on top of it all, Michelle quickly parked him upon a kitchen stool she had dragged from the counter and positioned his wounded hand under the stream of water. She then headed toward the kitchen door to retrieve the towels inside, then swing by the bathroom cabinet to pick up the first aid kit.

"Did you remember to say 'thank you' to the nice man for saving your life?... Hmmm?" she admonished the cookie-boy as she whisked right past him on her way to fetch the towel for the hero-boy.

Tony felt his head jerk back in shock again.

"Shouldn't you be drying it... drying him off, honey?" he reminded her with a nod of his chin in the shivering creature's direction, as shocked to find himself feeling concerned as he was to see Michelle basically ignoring it—and at a time when the pumpkin-chop needed its mother's attention the most. "He's kinda wet, don't ya think?" he added, his nose just now sensing the presence of chocolate wafting through the air.

"He's the one with nine lives, not you," Michelle firmly stated, though pausing on her way back in to drop another fresh towel over Fluff-Fluff, knowing he would instantly begin rolling around all over again, and that he'd only stopped because the other towel had become a little too damp for his finicky liking.

"Take that wet shirt off, please," she tsked, shutting the faucet off and moving to the stove to pour the heated cocoa-fied milk into a cup.

A few minutes later, Tony sat with a fluffy towel around his bare shoulders, a cup of scalding hot chocolate warming his palms, eyes closed, his face aglow with rapture, and head sightly tilted back while she quickly and methodically dried his hair, ticklishly sweeping over his ears in the process, as if frantic to get it done before he came down with a case of pneumonia worthy of mention in "Ripley's Believe It or Not." He thought his throat would literally burst wide open from that great sensation that percolated deep inside; that same sensation he always got when the lady at the haircutter's towel-dried his freshly washed hair.

He peeked at the cat for not even a full second; just long enough to notice that about half of its fur had already boophed itself out again, and to flash a universal male-to-male message that basically amounted to "Suffer, sucker."

He couldn't determine which sensation felt more blissfully overwhelming: her light "all done" kiss against the side of his forehead as she crinkled the torn wrapper from the huge band-aid she'd just placed upon his disinfected injury; or her breasts pressing lightly against his back as she leaned in to kiss his cheek this time; or the surge that rushed throughout him when she ordered him out of his wet jeans.

A strange calm came over him upon realizing that his Golden Upper Hand hadn't had any hand at all in eliciting this luscious level of doting he was receiving from her; that he hadn't even needed to employ it to snap Michelle into high-fuss gear; that for all the time he'd invested in fretting over losing his Hand, when the chips were down, he hadn't even needed it.

There was some kind of sublime lesson going on in all of that, he knew. Exactly what, he wasn't sure, but promised himself to give it some thought. Not now, of course; Michelle would be done any minute with the sandwich he hadn't even commanded her to make. She had somehow known, out of nowhere, that he was suddenly starving. It was as though she had mind-melded from clear across the kitchen and felt his pain.


	20. His Showdown

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 20: His Showdown _

"May I ask you a question? Just _one_ question?" she sternly requested in a hushed, restrained tone that neither qualified as a whisper or a fed-up–to-her-teeth-with-him yell, but some sort of hybrid of the two — a yellsper, Tony decided.

He thought about her request for a moment. It was a free country. The First Amendment was still valid and in effect. She was indeed entitled to ask. And just because she submitted a question didn't mean that he had to answer it, being a free country, and all. "Free speech" swung both ways in that respect. So, yes, he supposed the request was a reasonable one.

Without diverting his solidly glued eyes away from the Nazi in the other room, whom he'd been staring at for the past couple of nonstop minutes, he gave Michelle an affirmative chin nod.

"Is there _anyone_ you get along with? Just... just _anyone _at all?" she begged to know, in utter annoyance.

Good. It was a rhetorical question. They didn't require answers. They didn't even require question marks.

He turned his head sideways to face Michelle, though without moving his locked-frozen eyes one iota off his target, which was none too easy a feat. It was painful, in fact. But a staring contest seemed to be the game that the Nazi wanted to play, so stare back he would, for just as long as the housekeeper wished to keep the competition going.

"Would you kindly _stop_ that? It is so rude!" Michelle yellspered at him again.

"Tell it to the frau," he drawled in a voice so low, he didn't even have to cloak it with a whisper.

"And will you _stop_ calling her names?" Michelle implored him, wishing for a rolled-up Newsweek magazine so badly she could taste it. "Turn your head back if you're gonna insist upon staring like that, for goodness sake. Your eyes look like they're about to snap right out of their sockets..."

Thank God, he thought, returning his head to its dead-forward position, his expression never deviating from the surly, sneering smirk that had embedded itself the moment the frau had locked eyes with him — or on him, as the case were.

Frau Frankenfat's icy expression hadn't changed a bit either, although it now occurred to him that she may well possess but only that one expression. She didn't exactly radiate personality; just a haughtiness and insufferable sense of imperiousness that made him want to beat her with her own umbrella; the same umbrella she had swung at him when she'd unexpectedly appeared in the kitchen doorway, catching him and Michelle engaged on the floor at a moment that could best be described as ill-timed.

The Nazi storm-trooped around the living room now, conducting her intensive search for the small photo frame she had immediately noticed missing before she had even looked at the bookshelf. It was as though she had smelled something out of order.

"I swear, I don't know what in the world gets into you sometimes. You're behaving perfectly ridiculously," Michelle reiterated, adding a hushed, thoroughly annoyed tsk to the end of her yellsper to accentuate her wholesale disapproval of his juvenile behavior.

Uh-huh. Whatever she said...

"You _could_ simply apologize to her and be done with it. You _did_ insult her, after all," Michelle snarled out a terse reminder.

So his German was a little rusty. Fine. Let's start World War III over it, shall we? It's not as though he had meant to call her a heifer, of which he was quite sure both Michelle and Frau Wiener Schnitzel were well aware. He had simply been caught off-guard and, hence, temporarily rattled by the woman's sudden, unanticipated arrival. If anyone owed anyone an apology, it was the housekeeper, for those crepe-soled, utilitarian clodhoppers that didn't make a sound when she walked; not even under the extreme stress the capacious colossus subjected them to.

"I don't apologize to war criminals, Michelle," he murmured quietly, his eyes never severing their connection with the burly woman, now currently engrossed in pretending to have found a dust particle clinging to a lampshade.

"Please put these on?" Michelle beg-spered this time, as quietly as her angry tone would allow, nearing the end of her rope with him as she foisted his freshly tumble-dried jeans against his crisscrossed arms.

"What would be the point," he sarcastically drawled beneath his breath.

"She didn't see anything. You're being silly," she insisted.

"She _saw_, Michelle," he quietly scowled. "Guys notice these things," he assured her, recalling how he had never seen a set of eyes shoot south so fast in his life.

Michelle winced as a mortifying vision of what she and Tony must've looked like, from her housekeeper's perspective, muscled its way into her brain. She promptly blushed to the shade of a beet, her hand moving upward to cover her burning cheeks.

In fairness, there was only so much complaining she felt entitled to do. It was entirely her fault, after all, that they'd even been caught in such an embarrassing situation; especially poor Tony, who's Marine training and sharply honed reactionary skills had rocketed him from an arched to a straight-upward kneeling position before he'd had time to realize that it wasn't exactly his best foot he was inadvertently putting forward. And as if it were even possible, matters had only been made worse when Mrs. Goebels had promptly taken a swing at him with her umbrella, convinced that he obviously had to be a rapist who'd broken into the apartment, the possibility never once crossing her mind that Michelle might actually have a date.

With a sigh of defeat, she refolded his jeans, still warm from the dryer, and placed them behind him on the stainless-steel surface of the kitchen station, which he was using as a backrest as he sat, motionlessly, on one of the station's matching stools in nothing but a pair of boxers and bulky athletic socks.

Michelle sighed again, thinking back to the moment she had ordered him out of his wet jeans, then decided to assist in the process, shamelessly seducing him with a steady salvo of provocative words and teasing gestures, wallowing in her power to excite him with such effortlessness and speed.

"Careful, woman," he had fairly warned her with a softness in his voice, but evil intentions clearly lurking behind his crooked, cocky smile. She'd intentionally ignored his warning, taking her sweet, alluring time to uncage him from the wringing-wet denum. "Keep that up and you're gonna bring out the beast in me... And ya know what's gonna happen then, don'tcha..."

"Remind me," she had taunted him, smiling up on her way down to her knees to strip him of his shoes, then jeans, all the while treating him to a bird's-eye view down the silky, loosely tied thigh-length kimono she had donned in place of her rain-dampened cardigan sweater and dress.

She was acquainted with the beast. They had met once before, the other night. The beast had emerged and made his introduction amid their various lovemaking sessions. The beast hadn't been interested in making love to her at that particular time; nor then, in the kitchen, she knew. All the beast wanted from her was sex.

"It's a guy thing," he had nutshelled it for her in a heavy, hungry pant, shoving aside the gentleman to make way for the raw jungle animal demanding its turn with her.

She had fallen hard for the beast that night, along with every other facet, molecule, and aspect of his being. She loved the way the beast had moved; the way he had treated himself to whatever he wished from her, feeding and imbibing with gluttony and abandon; handling her more like his wench than his woman; consuming her with a greedy selfishness and sense of male entitlement; focusing feverishly and exclusively on indulging his own carnal desires, with nothing occupying his mind but the crackling waves of exhilaration exploding everywhere within, around, and throughout him.

Though it hadn't taken long for his salacious side to work itself up to a feverish verge of release, his one-man wilding had made her sweat hard, burn hot, and swoon paradisiacally. She'd felt overwhelmed on so many levels, but mostly by the dizzying display of brute strength and raw power that his male physique, by natural design, lauded over hers.

With that first encounter hot on her mind, she had found herself lusting to once again surrender herself, unreservedly, to his freer, bluer, bawdier side.

"_You_ know what it means. I can't be held responsible for my actions," he'd wolfishly warned with a sly, confident grin, his internal beast gnawing through the final bar, ready to spring from its cage and show her no mercy. Since she couldn't think of a better, more entertaining, or exciting way to wait out the rain and nightmarish traffic, she had cavalierly continued pursuing her diabolical mission of driving him to the brink of sexual distraction.

The beast had wasted no time in pinning the small of her back against the rim of the kitchen station, his fingertips handily slicing through the silky sash tied loosely at her waist. She recalled how his jaw had predictably dropped when his eyes laid siege to her shimmering thigh-high stockings, which she'd slid into earlier, remembering a comment he had made the other night about how ones with white, lacy tops tended to reduce him to the mental equivalent of a prisoner, held in captivity for years by a long-lost tribe of six-foot Amazonian fems.

In a flash, the beast was all over her, and within her. He hadn't even allowed for the extra half-second it would've taken to rid himself of his boxers, leaving them to twist and tangle somewhere around his thighs. He'd ignored the negligible crimp they'd placed on his mobility, intent upon fixating, with full focus, on her facial reactions to each firmly rendered thrust he'd ravaged her with.

"Geezus, woman," the beast had whimpered only a minute into feasting rapaciously on his prey, thick droplets of sweat already lined up to take the plunge from his brow to the near-nakedness he had quickly stripped her down to.

Without breaking the torrid tempo that brought forth shallow, metric gasps and groans from her throat, he'd lifted her head from the hard kitchen floor to the crook of his arm, not for her comfort so much as to provide himself better access to her mouth and ears, and to the premium, tender white meat tucked beneath her jaw line, begging to be swallowed whole.

The internal heat and slickness of her body had instantly elevated the beast's edacious hunger to five-alarm proportions. She was his slab of raw meat; his freshly downed wildebeest, body still warm and ripe for the gnawing. He'd let his teeth drag and scrape against the damp, salty skin of her neck, his mind engaged in heated battle with his inner Cro-Magnon, whose jaws ached to clamp down on the sweet flesh of his fresh prey.

Every greedy, primitive movement and motion had been all about him. His palms and fingers were everywhere: roaming, delving, defaming, invading, manipulating. Whatever the beast had desired of her, he'd simply taken from her; whichever position he'd wanted her in, he had put her in; whatever raw, unholy thought had entered his mind, his wet, sex-scented lips had snarled, in blunt, gruff, unabridged terms and tones, and with heavy puffs of heated breath blasting against her neck and ear.

He had felt her rapidly disintegrating beneath him. The final mega-force bursts of testosterone were torpedoing wildly around his system. He'd been seconds away from releasing a plaintiff wail, predestined to echo in distant galaxies for light years to come, when he'd suddenly found himself, instead, rocketing upright, onto his knees, in an involuntary response to a shadowy presence that the corner of his eye had detected in the doorway.

Before his mind had even been able to process the visual, a black, sopping-wet umbrella had come swinging toward him. The abrupt jerk of his body reflexively lurching forward to grab it had inadvertently sent Michelle hurtling from all-fours to an even less flattering face-down sprawl across the kitchen floor.

Though wholly mortified, he had also felt enormously relieved at the time, as well as eternally grateful to himself, that his boxers were only a yank away instead of somewhere across the room. Michelle had been nowhere near as fortunate with regard to her kimono, reduced to searching in a haze of panic and confusion — with the strangest-sounding squeals emitting from God-only-knew what part of her — while Tony did his best to shield her from Mrs. Goebel's paralyzed stare, with nothing more than his own body and a dishtowel, which was the closest thing he'd been able to lay his hands on at the time.

Michelle shuddered from the mental movie now winding down inside her head, wishing she could go into her own memory banks, as she did her computer's, and simply dump the humiliating file from her brain, for good.

"Well, you can't just sit there like that, in nothing but boxers, for Pete'ssake!" she returned to insisting.

Ah, but the woman was wrong, because indeed he _was _sitting there, just like that, and there he would remain for as long as Broomhilda wished to continue her pedantic test of his mettle and wits.

He watched, now, as the frau strove to covertly strain her eyes in his direction, clenching a spray can of furniture polish in her fist as though it were a ray gun, prepared to vaporize invading aliens insane enough to enter Earth's atmosphere with dirt on their shoes. She was looking to see if his own eyes were still engaged, he knew, becoming noticeably disgruntled upon discovering that he still hadn't blinked since the last time she'd checked. Feigning disinterest in his impressive show of self-discipline and staying power, the frau returned his taunting glare before resuming her hunt for airborne microbes and the missing picture frame.

As Michelle reached for his jacket on the kitchen floor, intending to ask Mrs. Goebels to toss it into the dryer, she heard a muffled ring of his cell phone emanate from one of the pockets.

"Ich bin sehr traurig, Fräulein, but I veel not be able to feed herr Fluff-Fluff, leider," Mrs. Goebels called out from the living room as Michelle fished through the pockets, inadvertently solving the mystery of the missing picture frame and frowning sternly at the culprit. "Mein boy was caught fighting again, und sein lehrer will mich sehen first thing in das morning…" Mrs. Goebels explained with regret.

"Oh, dear… umm… Well, I guess I'll just take Fluff-Fluff along, in that case," Michelle called back to her, taking great strides to ensure that the thief noticed her tucking the small picture frame beneath his folded jeans on the counter.

"The kid's training to join a militia," Tony mumbled a mark-my-words prediction under his breath to Michelle as he took the phone from her, scowling at the thought of the pumpkin chop shedding his gay fur from one end of his apartment to the next. But he felt indebted to her for having spared him the inevitable hell he would've caught if Colonel Klinkette had discovered the picture frame while drying his jacket.

His usual thoughts of Chappelle on the other end of the line made his stomach briefly leap, but as he flipped the phone open, he made an on-the-spot decision that if the incoming number was indeed Chappelle's, he wasn't even going to answer. Screw it. If breaching the rules governing a Director's off-hours resulted in disciplinary action, so be it. He was taking his woman home — to her real home, where she belonged — and teaching her the true definition of "exquisite," and nothing short of a terrorist attack in the middle of his bedroom was going to alter that plan.

His scowl instantly evaporated, however, as he zeroed in on the incoming number.

"Hey, Dad," he said, always happy to hear the sound of his father's voice. "Whatcha up to..."

"Ohhh, about two-ten," Jim Almeida smoothly deadpanned in reference to his weight, leaning against the warm fender of his car, which he'd parked only moments earlier in front of an old beat-up coffee shop straight out of the Twilight Zone. Giving his slightly thickened middle a firm pat, he fondly recalled a time, not too terribly long ago, when nothing but solid muscle could be found in its place.

"How's Mom," Tony chuckled, as he always did, in response to his Dad's standard joke, despite having heard it a thousand times over the course of his lifetime. "Has she stopped crying yet?"

"She's miraculously managed to hold herself together so far," Jim Almeida was happy to report. "She's inside some old coffee shop we came across... teaching the kid behind the counter how to make latte, or some such thing," he said, peering across the dirt-paved parking lot and through the shop's filthy plate glass window at his wife, who'd promptly seized control of the place upon entering and was now banging around an assortment of pots and utensils.

"How did she react to the cows?" Tony grinned as Michelle reentered the kitchen and tucked herself between his legs, settling her head against his shoulder for a quick power nap while waiting for his jacket to dry.

"We haven't made it that far, but I know of a field about twenty minutes up ahead that's packed with them," Jim Almeida replied, willing to down a cup of mud at this point. "But I did get the chance, on the way up, to explain to her where milk came from… I don't think she believed me, though."

Tony chuckled again, visualizing his Dad patiently leaning against his prized 6.0-liter, V-12, two-door Enzo Ferrari hardtop, where the man would stand for hours, he knew, if that's how long his Mom required to fulfill her missionary work of equipping the teenaged kid behind the counter with the culinary skills he would need to survive in life.

"Listen, chief, the reason I'm calling," Jim casually ferried, loosening his tie as long as his wife was inside. He paused to drink in the sight of her lovely features and form, smiling as he watched her terrorize the poor gawky kid behind the counter, taking him through the recipe as though she were making a guest appearance on the Martha Stewart Show. "I was on the phone with your sister a few minutes ago," he continued, "and she mentioned something, just in passing… Nothing much, but I know you want to hear about this kind of thing..."

"Everything okay?" Tony asked, consciously disguising his concern so as not to activate Michelle's internal snoop mechanism.

"She's fine," his Dad assured him. "It's just that she had mentioned that she thought some guy had been following her, when she and that idiot boyfriend of hers, whatzhizname... Harold?"

"Gerald," Tony said, listening intently. "When was this, Dad? Just now?"

"Nah, yesterday, she said, when the two of them were leaving that restaurant you guys had lunch at... Probably just some creep. You know how men are, around your sister. But I thought I should let you know," Jim said, complying with the request his son had made long ago, when not only Tony's name, but that of his girlfriend, had been found on a list recovered from the freshly gunned-down corpse of a perp, whom CTU had been surveilling at the time. The list had also contained the names of two other federal agents working the sting operation, along with the identities, addresses, and even some photos of various family members.

Although it couldn't be proven conclusively, the implications had been obvious to all: it was a classic hit list, drawn up by a party whom evidently didn't subscribe to the unwritten cops-and-robbers code of leaving innocent family members out of the fight. From that point forward, Tony had insisted, of family and girlfriends alike, that he be informed of any unusual encounters or experiences, no matter how harmless the outward appearances may seem.

"Did she give you a picture?" Tony asked, switching over to a coded language that he knew his Dad would understand, in a further attempt to avoid arousing Michelle's chronic curiosity.

"Nah, no description. You know your sister's observation skills," his Dad responded. "She couldn't even say if the guy was nineteen or pushing ninety... And forget the idiot boyfriend. He's lucky if he remembers to dress himself in the morning," Jim Almeida threw in as a factual aside. "Nah, all she recalled was that the two of them were about halfway down the block from the restaurant when she felt like…"

"On foot?" Tony briefly interrupted with a deep squint, trying to visualize the scene.

"Yeah, but the guy was in a vehicle. No make or model, of course, but it was one of those SUV-types. Silver, she said."

Tony felt his heart leap into his throat, but made a concerted effort to maintain an even-keeled demeanor and tone. He hadn't planned to share the activities of the 2004 Mitsubishi with Michelle just yet; not unless, and until, the guy had made some kind of move that suggested their safety might be at issue. Until then, he had planned to keep his eyes open and on the lookout. What he hadn't anticipated, however, was Olivia becoming part of the picture. He felt nowhere near as cavalier about her safety as he did his own and Michelle's: two well-trained, well-armed feds, equipped to react act aggressively and effectively, should this guy prove himself to be a legitimate problem down the road.

"You guys on your way home, now, Pop?" Tony asked, surreptitiously signaling his Dad with the moniker he would never otherwise use to address him.

"I guess we are now," Jim Almeida responded, fain to indulge his son's wishes without question or hesitation.

Every dormant Beach Jumper antennae within him seemed to instantly reengage, as though sirens had sounded throughout an underground military installation, calling all operatives back into active duty. Casually launching himself from the fender of his car, he proceeded to saunter slowly toward the coffee shop, conducting an indiscernible, though wholly thorough, 360º scan of his surroundings. There was nary another soul to be found, he concluded; just the kid behind the counter; a man and a woman in the apartment above, arguing politics over the sound of a cable news program; two crows atop some chicken-wire fencing at ten o'clock; minimal traffic on the 90º W-NW lateral horizon; and a single-engine prop — likely a late-70's Cessna 172 — cruising at an air speed just slightly below 100 knots, as far as Jim Almeida's former Ops ears could calculate from the gentle hum reverberating through the breeze.

"Give me an idea of what ya feel you're dealing with, here, chief," Jim requested in his signature low, unflappable tone as he made his approach to coffee shop's window.

"Not much, really. One, maybe two," Tony conveyed, on a scale of one to ten, assessing minimal cause for concern at this particular juncture. "So, what's Olivia up to today?" he nonchalantly added, lazily sketching a soothing, triangular trail against the small of Michelle's back.

"Will do," Jim Almeida replied, agreeing with his son's request to call Olivia home, just as a precautionary measure.

"Any news from Pete about Sarina?" Tony thought he might as well add.

"I'll give him a call and bring him up to speed," his Dad assented, though a little surprised to see his son casting the net out so wide as to include Sarina, given the low-level threat he had just assessed. "Say, uhh… chief… I know you're not free to go into it now, but are ya sure you don't wanna tighten security a bit more? No problem bringing in The Suits," Jim assured him, referring to his black-suited corporate security detail, with whom he, and most other captains of industry, were known to travel, given the political volatility prevalent in so many of the countries they routinely conducted business within; not to mention the ripe target that wealthy CEO's themselves represented to would-be kidnappers and other assorted criminal entrepreneurs, whose numbers were currently enjoying their usual, steady uptick.

"Nah, you and Pete are plenty," Tony was confident. The SUV's driver had yet to make a single move that could even remotely qualify as threatening. Millions of freeway drivers flipping each other the bird every day exhibited more aggression, in fact, than this guy had shown to date. He hadn't even tried to communicate with Olivia; nor had he ever come closer than within three car lengths of his own vehicle. Inclined as he felt to go out and hunt the guy down on the spot, smash him against a wall, and demand to know the reason behind his sudden interest in Almeidas, his position as a federal law enforcement officer precluded him from doing so. Unfortunately, by today's kind-and-gentle Kumbaya societal standards, even so much as ordering up a sat-track of the SUV's recent movements and whereabouts would be viewed as a gross violations of the driver's rights.

"We were just getting ready to leave Michelle's, so I'll give ya a call a little later, Dad," Tony wound up their conversation as Michelle began showing signs of slowly returning to life.

"Good enough, chief," Jim signed off, pocketing his cell phone and lightly tapping his wedding band against the plate glass window, promptly capturing Amanda's attention.

Her hands immediately launched into a flurry of socialite sign language, explaining that she was just about to instruct her young charge in the fine art of properly scorching milk with only a microwave oven at hand, but her husband's telegraphic eyebrow quickly brought her appeal to a halt. Hurriedly gathering her things together, she joined him on the other side of the door, her young Grasshopper scurrying behind her, carefully balancing a large, unlidded styrene cup of steaming mock-latte in each hand while clamping down hard on the fifty-dollar bill wedged between his teeth.

Tony clapped the cell phone shut on his end and circled his arm around Michelle in a full embrace.

"You awake, pumpkin chops?" he softly cooed alongside her ear, prompting a soft giggle and a sweet kiss against his cheek. The silkiness of her supple lips instantly reignited his burning desire and determination to get home and complete the task that the Nazi's appearance had so rudely interrupted.

He accepted the jeans this time, when Michelle held out to him, earning himself a slow, quiet kiss, which ended a lot sooner than planned when Frau Fattenstein barged into the kitchen, holding his tumble-dried jacket between two pinched fingers as though forced to handle a weapons-grade biologic without benefit of hazmat protection.

Twenty minutes later, as the torrential downpour began dissipating into a misty trickle, Tony glanced into his rearview mirror at the gay blade's cat carrier on the back seat: proof that he was indeed love. It had to be love. Not only had he allowed Michelle to extort him into housing the fur ball for the night, she had also somehow managed to finagle him into dropping the Nazi off, since her home was right along the way — if you considered six miles out of your way "right along the way."

"We can't very well expect her to stand at the bus stop in the pouring rain," Michelle had insisted, reminding him that, after all, he _had_ been the party responsible for crunching the spokes of the woman's umbrella.

There wasn't a raindrop alive with the guts or audacity to land on the Nazi, but Tony nevertheless complied with Michelle's wishes, even though the moment had been primo to whip out his Upper Hand and put his foot down. But enough things had been whipped out for one day, he figured, resigning himself to stuffing Frau Frankenfat in the back seat with the pumpkin chop. Anything — anything at all — to get the show back on the road. His body still ached from the pent-up fluids that had only been seconds away from jettisoning when the Nazi had made her unscheduled appearance, leaving him with a mission in dire need of completion.

Crawling to yet another stop at an interminably long red light, Tony attempted to angle his rearview mirror, fully intending to resume his stare-off with the frau. But his plans were quickly dashed when Michelle gave his hand a sharp slap for daring to even think about initiating another showdown.

"Ow," he complained under his breath, with a deep frown, followed by an even deeper scowl upon hearing what he swore had been a low, yet distinctly audible, snicker emanating from the back seat. He didn't say a word, however, conjuring every shred of remaining patience to silently sit and simmer, instead, wondering if the frau had any idea of whom and what she was tangling with. Michelle had earlier forbidden him to use her computer to run an Interpol check on the Nazi, but just as soon as he got home to his own computer, he would see who snickered last and best.

It was six of the longest, most deadly silent miles of his life — topping even the long hauls his Marine unit used to make en route to whatever the given mission or battlefield — but they'd finally arrived at the Nazi's abode: a quaint little one-story Spanish-style structure sitting atop, no doubt, an underground, bunker-style meeting place for local skinheads and other assorted Arian sympathizers. Regardless, he'd gone on to perform like a perfect gentleman, hauling himself out of the car and getting the woman's door for her, which had made Michelle proud of him — as if she didn't already have enough to be proud of, following her housekeeper's earlier surprise inspection of his wares, which he'd apparently passed with flying colors, given the circumferential increase in the frau's eye size.

Finally back on the road again, he quickly found himself at yet another complete standstill in the insufferably thick traffic, with drivers crawling along the freeway like 80-something geriatrics out for a Sunday cruise, just as he had earlier predicted. His mood rapidly deteriorated, as if it were even possible to become any more annoyed with the world than he already was.

He reached over and switched on the ballgame, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by a violent assault of hunger pangs as Michelle leaned into the backseat and began feeding pieces of a chopped, ziplocked organic carrot through the cage door of the cat carrier.

"I'm _starving_, Michelle!" he grouchily announced, his tone sounding more like a warning than an informative statement of fact.

Just like a woman, she waited for the clunking sound of bat against ball before rendering her response directly over the sportscaster's wildly excited description of what sounded to be a long-overdue homerun for the Cubs.

"Why don't we get off at the next exit and find a restaurant," she chattily suggested. "A nice cheeseburger place, maybe… Hmm? And then, by the time we're on the road again, traffic will be back to normal, and..."

Judging from his state of high panic, and the boisterous demands he made of the radio for an instant replay of the run he had missed, Michelle decided it would probably be best to just quietly sit back for the duration of what promised to be a very long drive. In disbelief of how riled up a man could get over a silly ballgame, she listened as he proceeded to rail and berate seemingly everyone and everything associated with it, including the radio's inferior stereophonics; the jackass sportscaster; the jackasses who'd hired the sportscaster; the network and its local affiliates; the talentless author of the Gatorade commercial; and last, but not least, hers truly, who had made him miss the homerun due to her "incessant talking during the game," as all ironies and stifling hypocrisies would have it.

After reading her the riot act and reiterating the baseball-spectator rules — all of which she largely ignored, finding it more interesting and productive to clean out her purse while simply yes-dearing him to death — he conceded that her restaurant idea sounded like a plan, though hated the thought of losing yet another chunk of valuable drive time. Ultimately, however, he was forced to give in to his stomach, which tormented him ten times worse after Michelle had mentioned that "nice cheeseburger."

Muscling into the right-hand lane, he suddenly reeled back in his seat at the sight the silver SUV a few vehicles up ahead, its driver jockeying to exit from the same ramp he was just about to take.

"The SUV again?" Michelle asked, momentarily glimpsing up from her purse-cleaning project to double-check the make, model and year.

Tony's eyes shot over to her. He should've known.

"Yeah," he mumbled, hard-pressed to miss the annoyance in her voice and on her face. She was obviously none too pleased that he had found fit to discuss the silver SUV with his Dad, while deciding to leave her — his newly appointed Chief of Staff and supposed right-hand man — out of the loop all together.

"I didn't want to concern you," he sheepishly efforted to defend himself. "I wasn't sure if the guy was actually tailing me."

"You were sure," she quietly busted him, "from the first time you'd spotted him outside the garage."

Michelle Dessler missed nothing. She'd been privy to the SUV's presence for at least as long as he had, he realized, taking a moment to create a mental reminder for the future, should he ever desire to do something devious with the hopes of getting away with it.

"So, umm… so what do ya think?" he contritely inquired, always genuinely interested in hearing her sharp, analytical take on things.

"Well… for one thing, it's clear that you don't particularly trust me," she replied in sullen disappointment, her feelings still smarting a bit.

"The SUV, Michelle," he clarified. "What do you make of this guy running surveillance on me?"

"Oh, uh… Well, he's, umm… he's got rental tags, so he's either from out-of-town, or a local who'd rather not be identified through his own plates," she quickly recovered, referring to the common perp practice of renting a car under an assumed name so as not to leave a paper trail. It was a practice akin to stealing a car and ditching it later, only a little classier and lot easier, and less risky than hot-wiring an ignition.

His hunger pains vanished as quickly as they had materialized. Another form of hunger had taken its place. For a refreshing change, he would follow the SUV, instead of the other way around. An uneasiness promptly consumed him, however, when he realized that the ramp the SUV had taken was one of the two exits that led to Bel-Air. His concern only intensified with every familiar left and right the driver would go on to make, his route consisting of the same series of boulevards, avenues, shortcut streets, and little-known back roads that Tony had driven hundreds of times, en route to his parents' house.

After a few more turns had left no question as to the driver's ultimate destination, Michelle read his mind and dug his cell out of his pocket, quickly scanning and memorizing the women's names she came across as she scrolled through the programmed list for "Dad."

"Don't remove 'Heather' or 'Christie,'" he murmured. "One's my cousin and the other's my broker."

"I'm not removing anything," Michelle defensively responded, cursing herself for having jumped the gun and removed "Christie" from the list already.

"Or 'Chloe,'" he added. "She's that new recruit Division's sending over next week..."

"I have no interest in your phone list, dear, I assure you," Michelle indignantly lied through her teeth, shaking her head in utter dismay for added effect.

Keeping his target at a safe, but considerable, distance ahead, he took the ringing phone from Michelle's hand.

"Yeah, Dad, hey…" he said, transitioning into the staid, professional tone and demeanor that Michelle knew so well, but which oddly seemed almost foreign to her now. It felt like another lifetime ago when she had last seen and interacted with him as colleagues in the workplace. "You and Mom make it home yet?"

"Nah, we're still a couple of minutes out... Why?" Jim Almeida inquired, sensing trouble afoot.

"That silver SUV again… I've got him in front of me," Tony replied. "He's doing a sightseeing tour of the homes of the rich and famous… I don't like it…"

Jim Almeida was silent for a beat, not particularly thrilled with the thought of the SUV entering the grounds Olivia had just been summoned home to.

"Pete's there, setting up housekeeping," he reminded himself aloud. "I'll give him a call and have him keep your sister and Sarina together in the cottage until we can figure out what's going on here... How far from the house are you?"

"About two minutes in front of you, if that's your car that just turned onto St. Cloud," Tony said, glancing into his rearview mirror at the Ferrari kicking up mud down at the foot of the hill. "This guy seems to know the back roads pretty well," he added uneasily, referring to the turn that the SUV was now in the process of making, onto a narrow, nameless dirt road that, decades ago, had been blazed into the hills behind the palatial estates to serve as a horse-riding trail, back when the wealthy neighborhood had originally been established.

"Did you call in the tags?"

"Nah, no use. It's a rental," Tony replied, decelerating to keep himself out of the SUV's sights as it snaked its way around the tight twists and bends in the road. "I think I'd better invite this guy off to the side for a chat, before he gets to the gate..."

"Give me a second and I'll get your back," Jim said, pressing the pedal a little closer to the metal.

"What about Mom?" Tony asked, glancing into the rearview mirror again at the sleek, elegant form of Ferrari's world-renowned flagship vehicle, capable of 217 mph, with handling as smooth as silk around even the most skintight turns.

"Your mother will be fine. She loves an adventure," Jim Almeida assured him, glancing over at his wife, whose eyes widened and illuminated at the mention of the word.

Whoever this guy in the SUV was, he had made an appearance around one too many Almeidas to qualify as coincidence, as far as Jim was concerned. It was time to get to the bottom of things.


	21. The Takedown

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_Chapter 21: The Takedown _

It was evident that the SUV had taken note of its tail, judging from the driver's sudden and rapid increase in speed. Left with no choice but to abandon his plans to wait for his Dad's backup, Tony floored it, sparring for sufficient space to pass the vehicle, then hitting his brakes, therein forcing the driver to reflexively slam down on his own.

"Do you want your gun, darling?" Amanda politely offered, reaching for the glove compartment as her husband executed a skidding, sideways halt behind the SUV, landing on an angle that precluded the driver from backing down the road, should he insanely decide to even attempt it with a federal agent now on either side of the vehicle, revolvers cocked and sights trained on the man's temples.

"I doubt I'll be needing it," Jim Almeida answered in reference to his son now barking out his federal credentials and sternly ordering the driver to keep his hands visible. "You hold onto it," Jim added as he bounded from the driver's seat, "and…"

"... yes, stay in the car," Amanda beat him to it. "Be careful, darling. That's the jacket Olivia gave you for your birthday," she called out a reminder, watching her husband sprint to their son's side with the agility and speed of a twenty-year-old.

In truth, Amanda wasn't the least bit concerned about his being careful. She knew he was more than capable of handling himself, plus ten other men, if need be. Her confidence was quickly confirmed as she watched her son yank the SUV's door open, followed by her husband ripping the driver from his seat and smoothly securing him face-down in the dirt, twisting the perp's arm into a locked position behind his back.

Amanda also couldn't help but stare in awe and admiration of her future daughter-in-law, who had come around from the vehicle's passenger side and was now issuing a firm, threatening reminder to the perp of how foolish he would be to even so much as contemplate moving an inch. Amanda was struck by the stark contrast of Michelle's soft, flowy, feminine Armani knock-off, juxtaposed with her surprisingly loud, clear voice and command of the situation. It certainly wasn't the first time she had seen Michelle wield a hunk of cold steel, her own experience of staring down the woman's barrel still fresh in her mind. This time, however, Amanda was able to witness a show of Michelle's highly impressive level of skill, intensity, and professionalism from a safe and comfortable distance, which made all the difference in the world. It was as though she were watching a television show, like "Police Story," starring Angie Dickenson in the role of Sergeant Pepper Anderson. Amanda remembered it well: a groundbreaking, pro-feminism hit crime drama, which every woman in her exclusive circle of Bev-and-Bel housewives had been all abuzz about back in the 70's.

While her son studied the driver's license in the inside flap of the man's wallet, her husband caught the pair of cuffs Michelle had tossed him and securely clamped them into place before removing his knee from the man's back and frisking him for weapons.

Shifting focus back to her action-packed future-daughter-in-law, so adroitly covering the men with her petite firearm clenched firmly in her hands, Amanda allowed herself to fantasize for the briefest of moments, imagining herself and Miriam with their very own private detective agency. It would be unique, Amanda knew, as she was certain that Beverly Hills had never had an all-fem agency of socialite sleuths. Between her and the girls' collective, impressive, worldwide friends, acquaintances, associates, and other assorted connections, and their natural-born networking skills, and the informative gossip grapevine to which they religiously subscribed and contributed on a daily basis, no other group of women alive was better suited to handle sensitive snooping assignments of a clandestine nature.

Plus, as a bonus, she and the girls would get to carry guns, like those lovely, compact, streamlined ones that the models had been shooting off on the runway in Milan last season, nearly killing the lighting director during rehearsals for Gimmo Etro's Fall/Winter debut, featuring an inspired reintroduction of transparent "mod" outerwear, circa Mrs. Emma Peele. Amanda couldn't recall offhand if the dainty pistols — replete with interchangeable grips in a variety of contemporary fashion colors — allowed for personalized engraving, but even if not, she knew that the girls would love them just the same; especially since each would be able to have their own, individual signature color.

"Why have you been following me!" she heard her son gruffly demand of the man moaning into the dirt. "Who are you working for..."

"I no follow you! I follow the _lady!_" the terrified prisoner pleaded, his heavy Asian accent landing like a full-force punch to Amanda's exquisitely sculpted abs.

"You've been following me and my family for two damned days!" Tony barked, handing the man's wallet off to his Dad before crouching down and roughly flipping the tightly cuffed, middle-aged man flat onto his back. "Check the vehicle," he instructed Michelle over his shoulder, who passed her 25-caliber Beretta to her future father-in-law before dutifully heading back toward the wide-open door of the SUV.

"I no follow you, mister! I hire to follow the lady... The _lady!_" the petrified perp repeated.

"_Olivia?_ My _daughter?_" Jim Almeida threateningly seethed in full protective-parental mode, reflexively grabbing the man's throat as if wholly prepared to choke him to death, depending upon the answer he received.

"No! No!" the man gasped with fear saturating his every atom, already feeling his oxygen supply compromised by fingertips perfectly poised to crack his windpipe with but one smooth, efficient black-ops squeeze.

As Michelle headed back to the men, fiddling with the metal closure on the manilla envelope she had recovered from the floor of the SUV, a low moan could be heard wafting through the airwaves; oddly, not from the man on the ground this time, but from the direction of the Ferrari.

"Oh, dear," Amanda breathlessly muttered, scurrying from the passenger's seat and moving several feet closer to the group before stopping abruptly in her tracks, in compliance with the wishes of her husband's eyebrow.

Instantly recognizing Amanda's guilty expression and nervous tone, both men paused from manhandling their petrified prey to exchange wary glances before slowly rising to their feet.

"Oh, dear, umm... That envelope, darling... Might it, umm... Might it be addressed to me, by any chance?" Amanda cautiously inquired with all eyes upon her, looking a little pale as she watched Michelle pass custody of the envelope to her husband, who lifted its flap. "He's, umm... I'm afraid he might be... well..."

"Go on," Jim Almeida spoke with an easy, controlled voice, in stark contrast to the frown digging increasingly deeper into his brow as he shuffled through the first few papers at the top of the heap.

Amanda's eyes darted rapidly back and forth between her son and her husband, then down at the man lying handcuffed in a heap at Michelle's feet. "Mr. Kobayashi, I presume?" she politely inquired.

"You _know _this guy, Ma?" Tony asked in complete confusion, glancing over at Michelle, who appeared equally as bewildered and clueless as he. "_Ma?_" he repeated with a firmer edge in his tone this time, after a few seconds of watching her nervously hemming, hawing, and clenching her hands together, as if about to lead the congregation in prayer. He quickly looked to his Dad, hoping to glean some kind of hint as to what was going on, but Jim Almeida's poker face had already locked itself firmly into position.

"He's, umm... He's a private detective, darling," Amanda sheepishly revealed, though addressing her response to her husband, who'd already figured out that much from the papers he was sliding back inside the envelope.

"Private detective…" Jim softly echoed his wife's words, his tone and demeanor as unruffled and unfazed as always. "Am I having an affair that someone forgot to tell me about?" he deadpanned, clamping the envelope lengthwise between two fingers and neatly tucking it into an interior pocket of his sports jacket.

"Of course not, darling... No, I, umm... What I meant to say was, he's Miriam's private detective," Amanda quickly explained, well within the bounds of technical accuracy. "Isn't that right, Mr. Kobayashi," she looked to the ground, her eyes begging the P.I. for backup.

"Then why is Miriam's P.I. lying fifty yards from my driveway instead of her own?" Jim patiently inquired, his eyebrow slowly and steadily ticking upward, like the sweep on a stopwatch, with every second his wife stalled on the details.

"He's, umm... He was a gift, of sorts," Amanda explained.

Tony stared in total confusion.

"They're giving each other private detectives as _gifts _now?" he turned and roared to his father, with naked alarm radiating from his bulging eyes.

"First I've heard of it," Jim Almeida murmured, eyes still firmly fixed on his wife. "You were saying...?" he prompted her onward with a ring of strong disapproval now evident in his tone.

Another low moan sounded, only not from Amanda, but upward from the ground where the man lied prostrate, straining against the handcuffs digging painfully into his wrists and cutting off his circulation.

"Well, umm..." Amanda began again, mentally scrambling for a way to ease Michelle's impending horror while still conveying the technical truth to her husband, and all in a way that wouldn't inspire her son to go ballistic. A trifecta-decepta: Amanda knew she could do it. "Well, you see, darling, I... umm..."

As his wife's intoxicating, translucently soft brown eyes launched into another round of darting, Jim Almeida made visual contact with the China Doll, whose crimson face and timid expression conveyed her mortification at finding herself at the center of yet another controversy.

"Missus Myer. She call me. She hire me," Mr. Kobayashi finally confirmed from the ground, wincing in pain, but still not daring to move a muscle until the two men had stooped down to free him of his shackles and help him back on his feet. "She hire me... Missus Myer... She call me... She say..."

"Yes, _thank_ you, darling," Amanda nervously cut the detective off before he could have a chance to reveal any of the finer, more delicate details. "You must be simply reeling from the trauma of this perfectly horrid misunderstanding… Darling, write Mr. Kobayashi a check for his pain and suffering, won't you?" she meekly suggested.

"Wait! I have bill!" the little man announced, as long as the subject of money had already been placed on the table. "I have bill for Missus Almeida," he elaborated, motioning toward the envelope buried inside Jim's jacket.

"It would appear your friend Miriam is billing for her gifts now, sweetheart," Jim said, dryly, as Amanda winced at the mental vision of her Hermés credit card being snipped in half.

"You hired a P.I. to investigate Michelle?" Tony finally found the voice and wherewithal to seethe, his eyes on the verge of crisscrossing with rage.

"I...Well, darling, as I was saying..." Amanda sputtered, her mind racing to construct both a palatable and legalistic response, wishing she had a martini glass to give her hands something other to do other than wring themselves half off her wrists. "I didn't actually hire him, darling. Miriam did, you see... out of empathy, I would imagine, being a mother herself, and, umm… Well, every mother can empathize with the frustration of knowing their son is seeing someone, though stubbornly refusing to introduce her... even to his own mother..."

"I'd been seeing Michelle for l_ess than a day_ at that point, Ma!" Tony roared in seismic frustration, struggling mightily, though none too successfully, to control his fury.

"Please, dear," Michelle's voice quietly crept forward, soft and low, from the rear of the tightly huddled crowd, reminding him of her earlier request from the other evening: that he exercise a little more patience, restraint, and respect when addressing his mother.

Much to Jim Almeida's amazement, his son's mouth promptly ceased and desisted, his hands robotically parking themselves on his hips as he took a few frustrated, circular steps, laboring to pull himself together — resentfully, but making an effort, nevertheless, obviously for Michelle's sake.

Jim Almeida broke his disbelieving stare long enough to focus on the China Doll, genuinely impressed by her unique ability to calm and quiet his volatile son, and with such subtly and grace. He had never seen another woman exhibit that ability or control before; in fact, the opposite would generally occur whenever one of his son's former love interests had sought to calm him down. He would invariably react with an even louder explosion, demanding to know why he should "calm down" in the face of whatever caper his mother had just been caught red-handed at. A few gentle words from the China Doll, however...

Impressive. Impressive indeed, Jim Almeida thought to himself, also duly noting her quiet self-control, and the patience she exercised, overall, with regard to his irascible wife. He couldn't remember whom the China Doll reminded him of at first, taking a moment before he realized that it was himself.

"Miriam was, umm... She was supposed to have terminated the investigation, you see," Amanda continued somewhat truthfully. Miriam would, in fact, have called Mr. Kobayashi off, had Amanda herself remembered to pick up a phone and request it.

Tony angrily muttered to the ground, making another wide circle, then staring up at his Dad in search of a few timely words of wisdom. But it was Jim Almeida's eyes that stepped up to speak, as usual, reminding his son of the advice he'd suggested the other evening: that he change the subject and ask his mother something about herself; that the option of blowing a gasket was always open to him, should he still feel the need to explode on her.

"What do you remember about _Nalda?_" Tony turned and roared, like a rabid animal, directly into his mother's face, at a volume that made Amanda involuntarily jerk back half a step in shock and horror.

"Wh… what?" she responded, slightly stunned and clearly confused.

"_Nalda!_ Tell me what you remember about _Nalda!_" Tony roared again, sounding more like he was interrogating the location of a ticking time bomb out of a suspect terrorist in a CTU holding cell than seeking to learn more about his family history.

Jim Almeida dropped his head to his chest and rubbed his eyes for a quick moment, then turned to the China Doll, who was standing as solidly frozen in her tracks as the last time he'd checked, with the same heavy expression of self-consciousness and timidity seared into her delicate porcelain features.

"Take a walk with me, hmm?" Jim gently suggested, stepping up and offering his arm to her.

Tony's fury put itself on hold for a beat, just long enough to absorb the vision of Michelle meekly accepting his Dad's invitation with a small, bashful smile, taking his arm and falling into step with his easy stride. She appeared so tiny alongside his Dad, he warmly thought to himself. Though his Dad stood an inch or two shorter than he, the man's stature always came across as monolithic, just given the confidence and ease with which he carried and comported himself. Tony had never known another man to display such inner calm while simultaneously radiating an aura of raw power and steady, unflappable strength, on par with a General charged with commanding the Supreme Allied Forces of a world war. The dichotomy never failed to intrigue and arrest him.

"He needs to work on his finesse, wouldn't you say?" Jim Almeida quietly opined with a dry smile, once safely outside his son's earshot.

Michelle giggled beneath a closed grin, gazing down to the ground and nodding in agreement as the fireworks resumed behind them.

"You handled yourself quite nicely back there, young lady," Jim Almeida commented after a moment, in reference to Michelle's part in succumbing Mr. Kobayashi. He gently patted her hand before reaching for the fresh, glass-encased cigar that he always kept stashed inside his breast pocket. "If you ever decide to go into the private sector, I would hope you'd allow me first shot at bringing you aboard my security team."

"Oh, umm... thank you," Michelle responded bashfully, surprised by the unexpected compliment and invitation. "I'm pretty happy at CTU, actually," she reported, almost apologetically.

"Would you mind?" Jim Almeida begged the China Doll's indulgence, smoothly glancing over his shoulder to assure that Amanda was still sufficiently occupied with fruitlessly defending herself before removing his secret stash from its case.

"Oh course not," Michelle replied in all sincerity. She'd never had any problem with a person enjoying an occasional cigarette or cigar in her company, just as long as they didn't smoke like a chimney; plus, she loved the thick, sweet aroma of an expensive cigar. It also charmed and entertained her, in this particular case, to see a man so powerful and in control as Jim Almeida sneaking a cigar behind his wife's back. There was something as sweet as amusing about it, she thought, pinching her lips to keep from grinning too broadly at his expense.

Jim broke into a grin, himself, midway through holding the small flame of his withering lighter to the tip of his cigar, fully cognizant of the humorous side of his taboo habit, which he preferred to think of as more of a hobby. A moment later he grinned again, this time in response to the muffled sound of his son's voice booming in the distance, threatening to transfer to CTU, Brazil, if his mother didn't stay out of his love life.

"So much for Nalda," he good-naturedly commented. "Patience is a virtue he's yet to completely master, I'm afraid… Please tell me he doesn't sound like that at work..."

Michelle laughed.

"He has his moments, but on the average, I'd say he conducts himself pretty professionally," she replied with a reassuring smile. "He's especially polite when he speaks to the president," she decided to add, figuring that a father would probably enjoy such a reminder.

She was right. Jim Almeida beamed proudly, taking an extra long drag on his hand-rolled, custom-blended, obscenely priced Davidoff, spending a moment trying to count the number of other fathers he knew whose offspring had clearance to interact directly with the president of the United States, ultimately coming up with a estimate of approximately none.

After a few more moments of leisurely strolling and listening to the conversation that his son might as well be having with a brick wall, Jim Almeida removed the revolver he'd tucked into the back of his belt after it had become apparent that the chances of having to defend himself with a firearm against the diminutive, terrified Mr. Kobayashi, roughly half his weight, were negligible, at best.

"I think this is yours," he said, checking the safety before passing the small Beretta to her, then reaching inside his jacket for the envelope he had earlier filed. "This, too, of course," he added, watching with a stab to his heart as the China Doll's cheeks instantly assumed a pinkish glow.

"Thank you," she said with a small voice in a way that both pained and warmed his heart.

"I believe I'm the one who owes the thanks, for the tolerance and graciousness you've shown my dear wife, under the circumstances," he replied in all sincerity.

Michelle smiled warmly, though it was clear that her mind was far more focused on the envelope's contents than his compliments. He watched from the corner of his eye as she quickly and gingerly peeked at the first few pages, which she knew he had already seen. Her cheeks promptly turned a slightly deeper shade upon finding the notorious newspaper report of her Hom Ec bombing, with the humiliating picture of herself as a pudgy sixteen-year-old. The article seemed to have a mind and agenda all its own, hell-bent on haunting her throughout her entire life. It might as well have been authored by Stephen King, the way it always seemed to surface at the worst possible time, under the worst possible circumstances, like that creepy tractor trailer with no driver.

After taking a final soul-satisfying toke, Jim stooped down to give his beloved Davidoff a proper burial. He reiterated his gratitude, though not with words, but with one of the two wildflowers he plucked from the side of the road, which seemed to surprise and cheer her up considerably.

"I, umm… I love taking walks, by the way," Michelle mentioned as they u-turned and slowly headed back, "so anytime you feel the urge to, umm… take a stroll..." she diplomatically inserted in place of "sneak a cigar."

"I'll take you up on that, young lady," Jim Almeida chuckled, patting her hand again as he redirected his attention down the hill, grinning warmly at the sight of his pride and joy, still in the midst of his rant, though getting nowhere with his mother, who appeared much more interested in the contents of his car's back seat than the content of his words.

"Oh... oh, I hope everything's all right," Michelle gasped in a sudden panic upon noticing just how intently and intensely her future mother-in-law was staring through the window, obviously at Fluff-Fluff's cat carrier.

"Excuse me... Excuse me," she breathlessly apologized, releasing her hold on Jim Almeida's arm and breaking into a semi-frantic dash down the hill.

"Why... it couldn't possibly be," she heard her future mother-in-law intone, with mouth agape and curiosity creasing her forehead, stupefied by the sight her eyes beheld.

"He's fine, honey. He just busted outta the cage," Tony was quick to set Michelle's mind at ease as she made her approach with the speed of a formula racecar driver, minus the racecar.

"Why, that's not... No… No, of course not. What am I thinking? It couldn't be. He's far too young," Amanda continued conversing with herself in a gaspy voice, agog over the cat lying resplendently atop his carrier, magisterially viewing the people show on the other side of the glass. "But the resemblance is simply startling… He's the spitting image of Catzmeow Royal Sultan Fluff-Fluff…"

"That's his _son!_" Michelle gasped in shock, her eyes tripling in size and bursting with pride, astounded by her future mother-in-law's active, pinpoint knowledge of Fluff-Fluff's esteemed bloodline.

As Amanda reeled back in one of her more perfectly executed Bette-Davis-reeling-back-in-amazement moves, Tony closed his eyes and dropped his head in mental pain. How did she do it. How did the woman always manage to land on her feet; to wiggle off the hook, like a thirty-foot Great White on the end of a spool of mere sewing thread; to shift the gears of the conversation, like James Bond behind the wheel of his Aston Martin, drag racing a geek in a Gremlin hatchback; to not only move the hot spotlight off her face, but to reposition it, and herself, center stage, in front of an audience of her victims, all tossing roses at her feet instead of the rotten eggs and tomatoes they deserved to be throwing at her head.

"No!" Amanda gasped in equal disbelief. "But... but of course he would _have_ to be. The resemblance is uncanny... Darling?" she said, quickly turning to her husband. "You remember Grand Champion Catzmeow Royal Sultan Fluff-Fluff, don't you? The Persian, darling, who won Best-of-Breed the year we were there with the Averys... He won two years in a row, in fact!"

"You _remember?_" Michelle gasped again as Tony ambled up to her side, figuring he ought to be there to catch her in the event she keeled over in a dead faint.

"Remember!" Amanda scoffed. "Why, we were right there in the third row... Isn't that right, darling?" she looked to her husband for confirmation, leaning in to kiss his cheek for the lovely wildflower he handed her. "They mixed up the tickets and those dreadful hillbillies ended up in our front-row seats. You recall, don't you, darling?"

"How could I possibly forget an experience as traumatic as that," Jim deadpanned, his eyes slowly drifting over to his son, who was struggling hard not burst into full-blown laughter at the thought of his Dad getting snagged into attending a cat show. He was usually much shrewder than that, always ensuring that his secretary booked him for a meeting somewhere on the other side of the planet whenever an event rolled around that he desperately wanted to miss.

Michelle nearly choked on her deep inhalation of breath, overwhelmed by the recognition her pumpkin chop was suddenly, and so deservedly, receiving.

"Or perhaps you really _don't_ remember, darling," Amanda said, on second thought, turning her attention back to Michelle. "He was terribly tired that evening, poor dear. If I hadn't kept nudging him awake all night, he might've slept through the entire show!"

After watching a tear of laughter leap the moat and roll for its life down his son's cheek, Jim Almeida's eyebrow invited him to make a rough guesstimate of just how high the China Doll was likely to jump for joy upon opening an Overnight FedEx, sent to her with deep regards from an anonymous fellow feline enthusiast, containing premiere, front-row cat show tickets — for two.

"My wife... She big cat lover," the all-but-forgotten Mr. Kobayashi volunteered from a few ginger steps behind the men, sporting an expression that begged to be paid and released from custody so that he might finally get home to his wife, who tended to worry whenever he was out gumshoeing a case.

"What do ya say we move this party up to the house, " Jim Almeida mumbled to his son, inviting Mr. Kobayashi to join him for a scotch and a check. He then began the arduous process of shepherding his chatty wife away from the never-ending cat conversation and toward the car.

"I still can't believe you were actually there!" Michelle called back to her future mother-in-law as Tony tugged and shuffled her along, her eyes darting up at him, checking to see if he was having just as much trouble believing it as she.

"Why, I'm certain I still have the pictures, darling," Amanda matter-of-factly injected over her shoulder, her casual announcement nearly knocking Michelle off her feet.

"Got a minute for a quick drink?'" Jim Almeida turned back to his son and inquired.

"Uhh.. We should really be getting back on the road, Dad," Tony replied with a man-to-man look that outlined his afternoon itinerary with an efficiency that words could never match.

"But your mother has pictures," Michelle pleaded in a panicky yellsper, her doe eyes so wide and filled with the fear of possibly having to wait to see them at a later date that it instantly melted his heart down to a pool of useless, spineless goop.

"Indulge your old man, chief," his Dad amiably nudged. "I've got something up at the house that I wanna give you, too."

Tony was sure that whatever it was, it could definitely wait; especially since it was likely yet another folder filled with Wall Street Journal clippings on the subject of retirement investing, which his Dad was forever accumulating for him, always handing over a new, fully loaded folder well before he'd finally finished weeding through the last. He still had two of them, in fact, stacked in the corner of the kitchen counter, which he hadn't even begun to glance at yet.

"Sure, Dad," he nevertheless complied, sending Michelle's heart soaring with excitement.

As he reached for the handle on the passenger door, he fortunately remembered that the gay blade was loose and lying low somewhere inside. Hoping to avoid an afternoon of scouring the woods of Bel Air this time, he eeked the door open just enough for Michelle to insert her slender arm and fish around the floor for him.

With the fur ball securely locked in its cage, and Michelle securely locked in her seatbelt, Tony fired up the engine and fell in line with the convoy, sighing as he calculated the dismal odds of his ever having Michelle all to himself again.


	22. Their Delay

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_**Chapter 22: Their Delay**_

"_At words poetic… I'm so pathetic…"_ he sang to her in a soft whisper as she giggled and nodded in wholehearted agreement with the lyrics, realizing for the thousandth time just exactly how deeply in love she was.

He leaned in to kiss her creamy skin, the weight of his torso pressing her deeper into the mattress of his boyhood bed.

"_I hate parading my serenading… as I'll probably miss a bar…" _

"You just missed two lines," she lightly chuckled, robotically swatting his fingers away from the buttons at the top of her dress again, her mind focused on the enchanting softness of his voice, and how sweet a gesture it was for him to sing a song to her.

"_...and I can feel after every line... a thrill divine... down my spine,"_ he drawled onward, his fingertips undaunted by the minor setback of having to begin their ascent all over again.

"I'm not getting caught twice in the same day, so you can just forget it, mister," she firmly whispered, noting his fingers about to attempt another end-run around hers. "I have a rule about that," she added, as if she had ever needed one.

"Ah, c'mon, baby. Nobody's gonna come in," he assured her in a low, soft whine, listening to himself revert to the same pleadings he used to employ as a teenager in sexual hell, the thought prompting a self-deprecating chuckle within: Thirty-seven years of age, and still there was something thrillingly taboo about having a girl in his bed with his parents just south of the floorboards, clueless as to what was going on inside his den of iniquity. It set a tone of danger, romance, intrigue, and — if he could just get his hand inside her blouse — action/adventure.

"Think of it as completely out of the question," Michelle reassured him with subdued laughter, laboring to resist the dreamy eyes he was now utilizing as part of his campaign to break her down. "_Shhhh!_" she added with a hushed squeal as the springs creaked noisily beneath them in response to his body shifting from a half-on-half-off to a full three-quarters-on-her position. "Honey, _watch out for the…!" _

One ceiling below, Jim Almeida's eyes darted up from his Wall Street Journal in sync with the sound of crystal shattering, then shifted left, to the other side of the room, where his wife's eyes were already upon him, playfully flickering with romance in a way that never failed to send his heart soaring.

Responding to her overt flirtatiousness, Jim's eyes assumed their trusty, sensual half-mast position, telepathically inquiring if perhaps she might care to meet him on their bedroom terrace later that evening for some hot hors d' oeuvres, cold champagne, and a steamy moonlight dance.

Her eyes replied with a brief mental check of her date book, not quite sure if she was even free on such arrogant and presumptuous short notice.

His eyes tossed her date book to the ground and took her firmly in his arms, informing her that he would be there at eight; that if she were a dame with a lick of sense, she'd show; that if the proverbial plane left the ground and she wasn't on it, she'd regret it — maybe not this evening; maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of her life.

His eyes kissed her hard and left her breathless, then hinted at how much he liked that red dress of hers before turning back to the Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Her eyes hung on him for a few breathless moments before tearing themselves away, wondering what she had done right to deserve the attentions of so dashing and charming a he-man as he.

North of the kitchen ceiling, Tony knelt beside Michelle on bended knee, gingerly transferring the last chunk of broken glass into the John Wayne trashcan between the bed and nightstand.

"Well, if I can't look in the drawers, can I at least go through your bookcases?" she whispered.

"N_oooo_," he gently sing-sang his answer, having no intention of placing himself in the position of having her unearth his old Superman comics, only to torment him for the rest of his life.

"You said you were gonna show me your Bobbsey Twins collection," Michelle gently reminded him, miserably failing to cloak her devilish amusement.

"I never said that," he mock-firmly corrected her, feigning indignant defensiveness for the sole enjoyment of luxuriating in the laughter it produced. "I said 'The Hardy Boys'..."

"Oh, yes, right. Now I —"

"There's a _huge_ difference, Michelle," he curtly clarified.

"Uh-huh," she vexingly grinned, watching as he carefully rechecked the floor for any remaining shards of glass.

The bed creaked even louder this time as he settled into it again, leaning his lips against hers to muffle out any further words of resistance she might have been thinking of offering.

"Ah, c'mon, baby," he whispered, his fingertips shamelessly resuming their pre-doomed climb up her dress. But he did it solely to hear her laugh. In actuality, he didn't really want to make love. There'd be plenty of time for that once he had gotten her home to his bed: his grownup bed; their bed. For now, he wanted to sing some more of his Cole Porter song and watch her eyes beam back at him; to smooch with her and feel their fully clothed bodies creating heat spots at key strategic points of contact; to thrill in the hard-to-get game she was playing with him — or for him — to prudish perfection.

"Do ya have any idea how many times I used to lie in this bed, right where you are now, thinking about —"

"Cheerleaders?" she cut in with the wildest of guesses. "Cheerleaders who'd somehow completely forgotten to wear the bottom half of their uniform onto the field?"

The woman was psychic. It was frightening at times.

He gazed down at her proud smirk, now, wishing he had the power to make time stand still. He felt enchanted with the moment, with the enrapturing picture before his eyes. He spent the next few seconds staring in wonderment of how remarkably perfect her face was; the soft, doll-like features, trimmed in loose curls, and gleaming white teeth that he swore he could see his reflection within.

His thumb pressed lightly against her eyebrow and followed its line. Another finger dragged down the straightness of her nose. His Dad had hit it so squarely on the head: she looked like a China doll, with smooth white skin and a touch of Asia in her dark eyes; lips that looked like they were on loan from a 15th century renaissance painting; a small, contended smile that seemed to light up the room on its own, without aid of the sun streaming in through the window sheers and warming the shirt on his back.

It suddenly occurred to him how his Dad always seemed to hit it the head, just as he'd done a short while ago when he'd given him that thing he had mentioned earlier. It hadn't been a file folder this time.

"You… Come with me," the Almeida patriarch had motioned with his glass of scotch, pressing against a door just off the kitchen, designed to blend seamlessly into the paneled wall. It was one of the many historic features built into the house in Prohibition days by the original owner, a Hollywood studio mogul, legendary not only for his high-glam parties, but the extraordinary lengths he'd been known go to insulate silver screen guests from the cumbersome police raids of the era.

Tony had dutifully fallen into single file behind the P.I., remembering the long, narrow hallway as being so much bigger when he use to race up and down on his Hot Wheels bike while his Dad cut deals over the phone.

He'd quietly sat and sipped on his scotch, watching his Dad ceremoniously scribble a check for Mr. Kobayashi, reiterating his apologies for the earlier mishap before transferring him into the custody of Rosa. His father had then silently proceeded to dig through the small safe neatly camouflaged into the paneling — yet another feature that had ultimately compelled him to purchase the estate before he had even completed the tour.

"Whatcha got there, Dad?" Tony had frowned in curiosity, watching him rummaging through the safe.

"A little something your grandfather had asked me to give you…"

"Uhh… aren't ya about twenty years late on that?" Tony had dryly joked as his Dad handed over a small, bunched-up cloth, like the type Rosa polished the silver with. Fumbling through the folds, his eyes had widened in disbelief at the object he'd pulled from the chamois's core.

"It's the ring your grandmother Nalda wore. Pop told me to hold onto it for you, until I thought the time was right," his Dad had gone on to explain, watching him hold it up to the sunlight filtering in through the window slats, turning it side to side to study the circular diamond's detailed bevels and brilliance. "I was told to use my good judgment," he'd added, pausing for a moment of fond reflection. "So, uh… how's my judgment?"

"Good, Dad," he'd smiled. "How's mine?" he'd asked in return and in all dead-seriousness.

"Couldn't be better, from what I can see," his Dad had responded in wholehearted approval of the China Doll. "So, uh… if my judgment's so good, what's up with the forlorn look, there, chief?" he'd proceeded to diplomatically delve, perching himself of the edge of his desk and lighting up one of his prized Davidoff's.

"No, I, umm… That's not what I meant. I wanna marry her, for sure, Dad. There's no question about that... But, umm..."

"But?" his Dad had nudged him onward, though already seeming to know the question that weighed on his mind at the moment.

"Well, we've known each other for awhile. Almost a year, now… y'know, working together, and all. But, umm…"

Another quiet moment injected itself, his Dad occupying the time by splashing fresh scotch into their glasses.

"But...?" he'd gently nudged him again, after a slow sip and a deep inhale of the fragrant cigar.

"It's just that… I mean, do ya think I'm, y'know… moving a little fast, maybe?" he'd sheepishly asked, painfully aware of how crazy he sounded, with he and Michelle still in the throes of their very first date.

His Dad had grinned, taking a reflective moment to sip and roll another mouthful of his favorite spirits.

"Are ya sure you're asking the right person, chief?" he'd asked in his signature smooth, steady tone. "I mean, you're talking to the guy who was fully prepared to propose to your mother about an hour into meeting her. I only waited two weeks 'cause that's how long it took me to hock everything I owned for a ring.

"You're kidding," he'd replied in surprise, studying his Dad's eyes to see if he might be joshing, or possibly embellishing or exaggerating the facts.

He wasn't.

"What's got me concerned, I guess, is the thought of, y'know... maybe scaring her off," he'd ventured on. "Like, maybe it's too soon to be asking her something like that…"

"People in love don't scare so easily," his Dad had sagely guaranteed, leaning in to lay a comforting pat against the side of his cheek. "Listen to your heart, chief. The Almeida heart has yet to steer one of us wrong," he'd added with a nod toward Nalda's ring, reminding him of another Almeida who'd been blessed with lifelong love. It was then that Tony could've sworn he had heard Pop's voice chiming in from over his shoulder, as he'd often felt at critical junctures throughout his life. It was as though the man had somehow managed to celestially insinuate himself into the conversation, hollering "Whaddaya crazy, Balonie? Ya got nothing to fear. She's your _Nalda!_"

Tony grinned, feeling a lot more relaxed and confident now. Those were the words he had needed to hear, from those two men, at just that moment.

"What are you thinking?" Michelle's soft voice interrupted his thoughts. But in lieu of a verbal response, their eyes locked and communicated for a few serious seconds, quietly sealing an unspoken pact to always be there for each other to peer into whenever solace or safe haven was needed.

"Do you know how much I love you?" he asked, not feeling the need to check so much as just wanting her to hear him say those words, in that particular way.

"Uh-huh," she assured him with a light flutter to her stomach, his out-of-the-blue question mildly startling her, but it was the good kind of startle; the one that delivered a wild wave of exhilaration, calling her every hair follicle to attention. "And you know, too... right?"

"Know what," he innocently inquired, wanting to taunt her into saying all three words for him again.

"How much I love you, too," she sweetly smiled.

"How much," he quizzed her, one corner of his mouth subtly arching into a small, sensual grin.

"A lot," she coyly replied, sensing another one of his on-the-spot quizzes coming on, which she found herself beginning to enjoy immensely, particularly given how much of himself he'd always unintentionally reveal, just from the nature of the questions he'd asked.

"Enough to, say... look after me if I got, like... deathly ill, let's say?" he tested her with that sickness-and-health-till-death-do-you thing in mind.

"Uh-huh," she responded, without a shred of hesitation or reservation.

"Even if I were to contract, let's say... the bubonic plague?" he threw one in from left field, seeing how quickly or easily she could be knocked off her guard.

"Yes," she smiled up at him as he subtly shifted his half-on-her, half-off-her position a little more toward the mostly-on-her side.

"With or without a surgical mask?" he slyly upped the ante, curious to see how well she fared in the face of the big guns.

"On whom," she easily countered.

"Either of us," he patiently clarified.

"Did you know there were two deaths from the bubonic plague in New Mexico last year?" she intellectually digressed.

"Just… just answer the question," he growled.

"No masks," she agreed with an impish grin, but not before taking a moment to think about it.

He nonetheless placed a soft kiss on her lips as her reward for yet another pop quiz well done.

"I'm gonna call Chappelle," he decided. "Have him assign replacements for us tomorrow. I was thinking we could maybe take a drive up to..."

"No, honey," Michelle interrupted, gently reminding him of the meeting he had scheduled weeks ago with Division, to review CTU's proposal for security upgrades at LAX. With Mason now gone, and Tony only a scant few weeks into his directorship, it was imperative that he attend the meeting if for no other reason than to demonstrate the recovery CTU was seeing, and the smooth working order he had restored. "Tomorrow..." she added with trepidation after giving the scene a moment's thought. "Geez, that's gonna be... interesting," she groaned.

"Everything's gonna be fine," he gently assured her, reading her mind and quelling her fears with his soothing voice.

"I feel like this is just one big dream. Like tomorrow it's just gonna —"

"It's not, baby."

"...it's just gonna blow apart and be gone."

"But it's not. You're just feeling, y'know... anxious, is all. Like one of us is gonna wake up in the morning not feeling the same way."

"I'm not gonna be the one," she assured him, though with worry lines still deeply creasing her brow.

"Me, neither," he quietly promised, sealing his words with a subtle kiss against her ring finger, as if prepping it, and her, for something soon to come.

"We should have a game plan for tomorrow, you know… for when you slip up and call me 'honey,' or something, and give us both away," Work-Michelle emerged and pragmatically suggested.

"I'm not the one we have to worry about," he confidently asserted, apparently having entirely forgotten about his slip-up with Olivia at the Thai restaurant. "If anyone's gonna give us away, it's gonna be you, gazing at me, all love struck, and everything… People putting two and two together and —"

"No, seriously, honey," she replied, concerned about his lighthearted attitude, unaware that he wasn't taking the subject the least bit lightly at all. He knew only too well, from past interoffice-romance experiences, the discomforting sensation of all eyes upon you; of catching colleagues you've worked with for years, suddenly staring from across the floor, mentally envisioning you butt-naked in bed and going at it. He had found that out the hard way with Nina and didn't want Michelle to have to endure it. She was too good, and sweet, and undeserving of that. She had baby cheeks, for cryssake.

"We'll talk about it later… at home, okay?" he said to appease her. "We should _be_ home," he heard himself add aloud, feeling his internal seethe-meter on the rise from the thought of how easily his Mom had managed to snag him into agreeing to stay for lunch.

"Rosa, darling, don't let Mr. Almeida talk you into one of those hideous steaks of his. Remember what the doctor said," the witchy woman had sung out to the family's housekeeper in precise synchronization with his, Michelle's, and the fur ball's arrival through the kitchen door.

"Si, Miss Amanda," the woman had replied, her words drowned out by Jim's grumblings that Max didn't know what the hell he was talking about; that there wasn't a thing wrong with him; that humans were carnivores, in physical need of red meat; and that those "hideous steaks of his" were the finest and healthiest grade-A beef the world had to offer, as opposed to the American variety, upon which Max had obviously based his warning.

"That's right, Ma. I read a whole article about the health benefits of Kobe beef in one of those men's magazines," Tony had promptly backed his Dad, taking the bait like an unsuspecting amphibian on a crash course with the witchy woman's hook, line and sinker. "It's supposed to be great for ya. Not at all like the steaks ya get over here."

"This true!" the all-but-forgotten Mr. Kobayashi had verified from the kitchen corner he'd parked himself in, bowing gratefully as Jim Almeida had handed him a glass of scotch. "My family... All from Hyogo. Ojisan... grandfather. He work on wagyu ranch. Raise Tajima-ushi. No better beef in _world_," the man had proudly bragged in defense of his homeland's cherished commodity, prohibitively priced at over $100 a pound on the international market; not counting the additional cost to restaurateurs and aficionados, like Jim, who sent their private planes to Japan for regularly scheduled pick-ups. "Ojisan eat it every day. He _ninety-six!_" Mr. Kobayashi had sealed the deal, raising his glass in support of Jim Almeida, and his affinity for the finer things in life.

"There, then, sweetheart. You have it on good authority," his Dad had rested his case.

"Straight from the mouth of an authentic Hyogo native, Ma. What more could you want," Tony had brilliantly chimed in as his Mom handed Michelle a champagne flute from Rosa's tray of girlie-looking pink drinks.

"Well... I suppose one more steak won't kill the man," Amanda replied with feigned reluctance, giving her housekeeper the okay-nod and absolutely insisting that Mr. Kobayashi join them for lunch. "Oh, and Rosa, don't forget Peter and Sarina." As if a genteel, 50-something, churchgoing woman like Rosa could possibly forget the "How the fuck are ya?" acquaintance she'd made with Sarina when the couple had roused her in the dead in night, looking for the keys to the guest house.

"Oh, and, umm… _darlings?_" Amanda had turned and coyly addressed the couple, proudly luxuriating in the frozen state of her son's face, who'd rather die than pass up a Kobe steak, and the unspoken kudos her future daughter-in-law was silently projecting through her small, whimsical smile.

But the Kobe steaks, as his luck would have it, had only constituted Phase-1 of his mother's nefarious scheme. He cursed himself, now, for not even seeing the rest of it coming from a mile away. Empowered by her success at having wangled him into staying for lunch, Amanda Almeida — fully determined to see Peter and Sarina blissfully wed before her grandtwins entry into the world — had gone on to stealthily contact the Reverend of their church, explaining the situation and begging him to perform the honors sometime around 3:00-ish, therein allotting herself more than ample time to pull a spectacular biker-themed wedding together.

From there, the evil one had casually suggested that he show Michelle the guest house while Rosa prepared lunch; that perhaps he could even help Peter assemble the two cribs, which had just arrived from that delightful new trendy Ba Ba Bébé baby store, despite its being closed on Sundays.

Once safely outside the earshot of her volatile son, Amanda had then gone on to hastily place two key, critical calls: one to Peter, informing him of his 3:00 marriage, with the suggestion that he call whatever bar his friends had laid siege to upon entering town and extend invitations to one and all, along with Amanda's personal apologies for such short notice; the second call to her ever-reliable event planner, François, officially putting him and his elite team on a Code Red footing.

"A biker theme, darling… No, motorcycle bikes… No, not the Italian moped variety, although they _are_ quite charming, aren't they?" she cooed, moving on to explain her vision.

With François frantically en route and finally a moment to herself, Amanda had then checked her dainty new day-to-eveningwear watch — Tiffany was eternally practical-minded, which is why she utterly adored them — and sat back with her champagne flute, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun against her face while awaiting her son's invariable, forthcoming, impending explosion.

"_Ma!_" his thunderous voice had bellowed, right on schedule and in visual synch with the cottage door nearly yanking off its hinges.

"Yes, darling?" Amanda had innocently sung out, rising from her down-filled garden lounger, superbly crafted of Scandinavian maple and covered in a perfectly charming chintz.

"What's this business about a wedding!" he hollered across the length of the estate, en route to the terrace at record speed, with Michelle dragging in hand behind him.

"Bedding? Why, it should be included with the cribs, darling. Did you check the —"

"You _heard_ me, Ma!" her son fumed, sprinting up the steps of the terrace, like Rocky Balboa on steroids and speed.

The final phase of her operation had been successfully implemented, or so it appeared: As Peter's dearest lifelong friend, his Best Man services had apparently been formally requested, judging from the man's level of rage.

In compliance with Michelle's gentle suggestion that he try to calm himself down a bit, Tony had dutifully taken a moment, and few deep breaths, before returning his attention to his mother, asking if his Dad was aware that a wedding had been scheduled for that very afternoon.

"Yes, of course your father knows, darling," Amanda hesitantly assured him. "I'm… I'm almost certain I mentioned it…"

"_Almost?_" Tony had loudly inquired, his clenched jaw flexing with borderline rage. "This couldn't have waited until tomorrow, Ma?"

"Well, darling, I mean... the question is whether the babies will wait until then… Hmm? We don't know that, now, do we, which is the whole point, you see."

"Wh... Well, why couldn't ya have just gotten a Justice over here, Ma? The whole thing would've taken five minutes!"

"Why, that's precisely what I did do, darling. The Reverend said three o'clock was the earliest he'd be able make it, and the rest, well… the rest just sort of... came together... by itself, somehow," she said with a soft sniffle.

Watching his head cock hard to the side, Michelle braced herself for yet another Almeida screamfest, greatly relieved that at least she wasn't the focus of the controversy this time.

But instead of his launching into a tirade, Michelle had been shocked to see his eyes suddenly taking on a kind and tender quality.

"Okay, Mom, c'mere... C'mere," he said, further stunning Michelle by reaching out and drawing his mother in for a soothing embrace.

"But it's for Peter," Amanda sniffled, with real tears misting up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry. You're right. I wasn't thinking, Mom. I'm sorry," he consoled her, glancing toward Michelle with a light roll of his eyes. He would later explain the gargantuan-sized soft spot his Mom had always held in her heart for Petey, whose own mother had abandoned the family for a life of glitz on the Vegas strip, only to end up dealing cards in a polyester uniform for the past thirty years. But a boy growing up without a mother was simply unacceptable to Amanda Almeida, who'd immediately maternally adopted Pete and always treated him like one of her own. And despite his having gone on to choose a less orthodox lifestyle than her flesh-and-blood son had pursued, Amanda was nevertheless just as proud of Pete — a thousand times more so today, in fact, for his instant willingness to break with gangland tradition and marry the mother of her soon-to-be grandtwins.

At the sound of the woman's first sniffle, Jim Almeida had arrived on the scene, eyeing his son as though he had just confessed to wrecking the family car.

"She's okay, Dad," Tony assured him, feeling like a heel as he handed his mother over to her protectorate.

"Peter's own mother won't even be here," Amanda tearfully exclaimed into her husband's sturdy shoulder.

"Be here for what, sweetheart?" Jim Almeida had gently asked, with arms encasing his wife and eyes glued solidly to his son, telepathically demanding to know "What the _hell_ is your mother talking about?"

"Don't tell me you forgot Pete's wedding was this afternoon, Dad," Tony had cooperatively mentioned, stealthily flashing three fingers to signal the festivities' official kick-off time.

"She wouldn't even take my call," Amanda continued emoting in pain.

"She doesn't deserve to attend," Jim had firmly declared, adding how out of place the woman would've been, anyway, at one of Amanda's elegant events. "Did you remember to order a boutonnière for my tux?" he'd then inquired, slowly turning his wife in the direction of the house.

"You're wearing your tuxedo?" Amanda had halted, staring up at him in surprise.

"Of course I am," Jim had gently replied, only having resigned himself a second earlier to going full tilt for his wife's sake. "We all are," he'd added, shooting an arched eyebrow over his shoulder, in his son's direction. "What did you expect. This is Pete's big day."

Amanda's tears had dried on the spot, her spirits visibly lifting at the thought of the new challenge before her: transforming her concept from semi-formal Hell's Angelswear for the bridal party to full-blown black-tie in little under two hours, which meant promptly getting François started on a tuxedo for Peter and something white and big enough to pass as a gown for Sarina.

"Completely, _completely_ undoable!" a semi-hysterical François could now be heard screeching upon his arrival at the guest cottage. "Even if I were to break into a Fat Man's shop and attempt to sew two off-the-racks together, darling, there _still_ wouldn't be enough time to fit a man of his girth by three."

"Oh, but you're a genius, darling," a wholly reinvigorated Amanda reminded her absolute favorite, world-renowned planner, to whom she'd been paying decadent fees for decades to whip together, at the drop of a hat, the most celebrated, talked-about soirees in town. "You'll think of something, darling. I'm certain of it. You _always_ come through."

Her words had scarcely left her lips before François was halfway out the door, already hysterically screeching into his bluetooth headset at Geoffrey, the right-arm of his life, who was just then pulling up through the gates of the estate in François's renovated tractor trailer — a veritable design house and sewing shop on 18 wheels, stocked to the gills with enough fabrics, trims, boas, baubles, and illegal immigrant seamstresses to rival any costume department in Hollywood.

"Who's that dude calling a 'fat man'?" Peter frowned, just now coming to realize that François had insulted him.

"No physical altercations today, darling. Really. It's your wedding day, for pity's sake," Amanda gently implored.

"You're gettin' _married?_" Sarina squealed out from her armchair across the room, where Michelle had taken it upon herself to explore a bridal hairdo she'd seen a few Vogues ago. "T'_who?_" she immediately demanded to know.

"T_'you,_" Petey bellowed back at his beloved. "I forgot to tell ya…"

"When?" Sarina inquired, in the state of shock.

"_When?_ How the hell do _I_ know? Whenever I _forgot_ is when I forgot, _okay?_ Geeziz!" Petey roared, staring down and shaking his head at his Best Man, who'd since stepped in to take over the maddening crib assembly job. "How come _your _old lady don't ask stupid questions like that?" he begged to know.

"I think she meant 'when' is the ceremony taking place, Pete," Tony clarified the obvious, doing his best to hold back a sigh of disbelief.

"The pastor was kind enough to agree to come by at three," Amanda chirped in Sarina's direction. "You don't want those little ones being born out of wedlock, now, do you, darling?"

" I… I ain't really thought about it," Sarina replied in all honesty, not quite sure what "wedlock" meant, but assuming it had something to do with a wedding.

"Hey, if the Duchess says we're gettin' married, we're gettin' married, ca-_peach?_" Pete declared in full voice, practicing for his upcoming role as head of the household, versus his former role as head of the Hell's Angels East L.A. chapter. "No need to think about nothin'," he added for good measure.

"That's right, darling. François will take care of all the particulars," Amanda assured the bride-and-mother-to-be. "All you need do is walk down the aisle looking just as radiant as you do now."

Sarina wasn't sure what "radiant" meant either, but it was probably something good considering it was coming from Mrs. Almeida, who seemed like a cool enough broad. This house they were shacking up in, with a wide-screen TV, was kick-ass; plus, everything was free, including the chow. And there were worse things in the world than getting hitched to the Animal, Sarina supposed. She could've wound up with the MonkeyMan, who couldn't knock over a liquor store without getting busted to save his life.

As Amanda Almeida flittered out the door to handpick flowers from the garden, with which she planned to create a perfectly marvelous bridal bouquet, Michelle glanced across the room at the Best Man, now absorbed in the silent reconstruction of the mangled cribs Petey had begun.

Deciding it was probably best to let him simmer undisturbed for a while, Michelle helped Sarina over to the daybed against the window for a quick power-snooze before the festivities began, then quietly slipped out the door to see if she could assist with the preparations in any way.

Combing the grounds in search of her future mother-in-law, Michelle eventually found her standing upright in the garden, squinting into the distance at the tiny figure of her hysterical designer approaching at high speed.

"I've got it!" he cried out in his loudest voice, the distance hopelessly drowning his words.

"_What,_ darling?" Amanda called back to him, turning to Michelle with a quizzical frown.

"Wardrobe crisis _averted_, Amanda!" he hollered back in a hoarse voice, waving something red-looking over his head, either frantically or gleefully; he was simply too far away to tell.

"What have you _got_ there, darling?" Amanda cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, even though knowing it was useless at such a great distance. But it was too early for a martini, and it gave her something to do with her hands.

"_Rome_, darling! We'll spray the ivy _gold!_" François's voice hung in the air about a mile out, or at least so it sounded.

"'We'll say that Ivan's _old?_'" Amanda turned and repeated the words to Michelle in utter confusion. "What on earth…? I don't even _know_ an 'Ivan.'"

"Bride in _white_… Groom in _red_… No need to create a _tuxedo_, darling!" François screeched as he made his final approach, heaving for oxygen and panting like "Survivor" at the finish line of the Preakness Stakes. "Geoff_rrrreeeeeeey!_" he turned and bellowed hysterically into the wind, his voice suddenly taking on the quality of a wounded mule.

Stooping over at a 90º angle while laboring hard to catch his breath, he continued wildly waving the clumped red fabric in his hand. "_Rome_, Amanda," he begged the woman to come up to speed with the concept, which would therein free him up to commit his full and undivided attention to the business of breathing. "_Ivy_… from the garden, darling… Sprayed _gold_… Think _Caesar_, darling!"

"Oh! ... Oh!" Amanda excitedly gasped, snatching the fabric from François's clammy fist. "Why, of course!"

"Rehh… rehh… _red_ satin for the groom," he heaved, giving Michelle pause to wonder if the man was going to make it.

"Why, how perfectly _ingenious_, darling! A regal Roman Empire soiree! Elegant and wordly, yet clearly something Peter and his friends are bound to enjoy! Gang members absolutely _adore_ toga-related events!"

"Pihh… pihh…_ pins_, too, darling. _No sewing_," François huffed and weazed. "Geoff_rrreeeeeey!_"

One hour and forty-two minutes later, Michelle stood on François's hastily constructed, though remarkably stunning flower- and golden-ivy adorned makeshift altar, shaded from the sun by endless yards of soft white draping that extended the length of the seating area. It was all she could to keep her eyes within their sockets. She had quite literally never seen anything like it before. Hell's Angels meets Rodeo Drive: glamour to the hilt, yet executed in a way that complimented and honored the bikers' chosen way of life, as well as their sacred dress code, with appointments that capitalized on their signature leather-and-chrome and dark-side icons rather than ignoring, or seeking to conceal, them.

But equally as amazing to Michelle was her future mother-in-law's insightfulness, in general. There didn't seem to be a group, or culture of people — from Washington's foremost elite to East L.A.'s most wanted — that she didn't seem to have an intuitive understanding of. She knew, for instance, that she was never going to get the biker Mamas into anything even remotely resembling a dress, so she'd come up with the concept of enticing them into gussying themselves up for the event with calf-length trains of sheer, phoofie black netting, with a black metal-mesh ribbon at the top with which to tie the train to the back loop of their filthy jeans; accented by things like coordinating black lace fingerless gloves, and red satin bands, trimmed with silver chains and miniature skull-and-crossbones charms, for wearing around one's upper arm, or head — just to "bring a little something" to the standard skin-tight t-shirt-jeans-and-boots ensemble, which Amanda Almeida really didn't feel was proper attire for a matrimonial ceremony.

Geoffrey had stood in the center of the guest house, rigid and frightened, though thoroughly prepared to foist the festive garb upon each Mama as they bounded through the door, but Amanda had instructed him, instead, to simply lay them out in plain sight, somehow knowing that The Mamas would find them just outrageous and campy enough to wear them, which each had indeed gone on to do — with the singular exception of WitchBitch, a direct descendent of the Hell's Angels' original founding father and, therefore, a purist who felt that accessorizing, in any form, was a fundamental violation of the dress code.

What's more, just as it appeared that a knife fight might soon break out over whom deserved to be the Mama of Honor, Amanda Almeida had stepped in and sagely suggested that Michelle assume the role, since Tony, after all, would be serving as Peter's Best Man. Sarina had needed no persuading, feeling that Michelle, in fact, had more than earned the position, not only for her earlier shows of kindness back at the apartment, but for the great job she'd just done on her hair, creating all those big, gaping, beer-can-sized curls at the top of her head, with pieces of ivy tucked among them, here and there, which Geoffrey had stood at her side spray-painting and blowing dry, like a crazy person playing Beat the Clock.

Michelle was also genuinely impressed by Amanda's ability to anticipate every conceivable pitfall and cover all bases, going so far as to charter a full-sized luxury Provost bus, packed with splits of champagne, cold bottled beer, and a six-foot hero, to transport Petey's rowdy comrades safely to and fro. It not only allowed the bikers to safely engage in their favorite pastime — getting drunk — but would invariably spare Bel Air's finest of inevitably having to engage in hair-raising high-speed chases and DUI arrests at the end of the day; not to mention sparing herself the trouble and expense of repairing such things as Harley Davidson tire tracks deeply gouged into the lawns of horrified neighbors.

Now pretending to smooth out a fold in her exquisitely gold-trimmed Romanesque dress — circa "Cleopatra," starring Elizabeth Taylor, only with a lot less chest — Michelle stole a covert, peripheral glance at the Best Man to her immediate left. She'd seen him stew with impatience before, but this had to be some kind of a record.

"Not one word," the Best Man growled, in no mood for conversation with his heavily starched tuxedo collar itching to the point of pain, and the pin from his hastily self-affixed boutonnière perched to stab him in the chest for the umpteenth time.

His conscience was stabbing away at him, too, only all too acutely aware of his federal obligation to arrest about half the audience members for outstanding bench warrants against them, but violating his oath for the sake of his blood brother, who stood on his opposite side, appearing to be enjoying the hell out of his regal red-satin Emperor's cloak, draping resplendently over his signature sleeveless Hell's Angels tee, torn-up jeans, and spit-shined biker boots, a gift from his Best Man, the former Marine.

But the feature The Groom was clearly enjoying more than anything was the stately, spray-painted ivy head wreath that François had crowned him with, the Best Man knew. It was reminiscent of the one his Mom had bestowed upon Petey one Halloween when they were eight or nine. He remembered Pete saying that it made him feel special, going on to wear the thing for months thereafter, until it had basically disintegrated on his head. Leave it to his Mom to remember a little detail like that from what now seemed like a lifetime ago.

"I…"

"That was a word, Michelle," the Best Man quietly stated, staring straight ahead at the waddling bride making her way up the aisle on the arm of his Dad, her free hand occasionally pumping a victory fist with her bridal bouquet at various hooting-and-howling members of the audience. As much as hated to admit it, he had to hand it to that François guy: Sarina actually looked pretty, all things considered, in the white satin Roman-style frock that draped over her enormous form. It definitely looked like someone had toiled for months making the thing, between the gold trim and sparkly stuff scattered all around the fabric. From where he was standing, it looked like the woman might even have shaved her legs for the occasion, although he couldn't swear to it; nor was he willing to think about it a second longer.

"We'll be in the car in just a few more minutes, dear," Michelle bravely whispered beneath the soft, silky strings of the quartet's Pachelbel Canon in D major.

Fourteen minutes, to be precise, the Best Man corrected her in his mind; fourteen minutes and counting. That's how long the ceremony, paperwork, and obligatory Best Man's toast would take, as close as Adam had been earlier ordered to calculate. Fourteen minutes, after which time Tony intended to take his woman, along with her gay fur ball already packed in the carrier on the floor beside him, directly to the car and directly home, with the best of luck to anybody nuts enough to get in his way.

Not that anyone should get him wrong; It wasn't like he didn't want to stand up for Pete, or that he'd ever intentionally miss the guy's wedding. He loved Pete. If he had the choice between Albert Einstein and Petey for a brother, he'd pick Pete any day of the week.

And it's not that he even blamed his Mom for wanting the babies to be born with their father's surname, or for her determination in making Petey's wedding day special and memorable for him; nor did her clandestine wedding arrangements really bother him, either, in retrospect. Event planning was in her blood. It was her art: her oxygen. The woman could no sooner hold a lackluster, five-minute, over-and-done-with ceremony than cut up her credit card collection.

No, none of that stuff really bothered him. It was just that the day was supposed to have been all about him and Michelle. It was the last day of their Friday night date, and time was torturously ticking away.

As he watched his Dad's eyes covertly survey the surroundings, flickering with amusement at his wife's innovative handiwork, he felt his own eyes suddenly sealing shut in precise synchronization with the sound of a deep sniffle emanating from his immediate right. Trying not to sigh too audibly, he tugged Michelle into his side and dug through his pocket for the handful of aloe-treated tissues he'd earlier stopped off at the car to grab, knowing in his gut that she was a wedding-crier, just as he had accurately pinned her out as a movie-talker.

As Michelle mouthed the words "Thank you, dear" before breaking down in a barrage of tears, he instantaneously felt his steely, austere exterior beginning to crack, which bothered him enormously, since steely-and-austere was the recommended look for federal agents when staring down a roomful of outlaw bikers.

Seated in the front row, alongside Olivia and Gerald, Amanda Almeida immediately began harmoniously sniffling into one of her signature ruffled lace handkerchiefs: her first layer of tears attributable to the joyous vision of her surrogate son, Peter, beaming like Roman royalty before a sea of beer-imbibing subjects; the secondary flood of tears fast accumulating and directly owed to the sight of her dashingly handsome firstborn, immaculately clad to the nines in black tie, doling out tissues and tenderly comforting his own bride-to-be-soon-enough-if-Amanda-Almeida-was-any-judge-of-soulmates-in-love.


	23. His Hell

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_**Chapter 23: His Hell**_

"This has never happened before, y'know," he angrily assured her, arms tightly crisscrossed against his bare chest as he stared down at the jeans he had hastily yanked on, in a fit of frustration, before storming out of the bedroom and onto the couch.

"It's okay, honey," Michelle soothed him for the half-dozenth time, her voice seeping out from behind the open refrigerator door. "Really, you're making way too much of it."

"It's _not_ okay, Michelle. Why can't ya just lock him up?" he fumed.

"Because he's been locked up in the carrier all day. He's got to be allowed to roam around for awhile," she gently explained the ways of the animal kingdom to him.

"Well, why can't he freely roam around the bathroom or somewhere… _Anywhere_ but the bedroom…"

"Here, look what I came across in the freezer," she sweetly announced, entering from the kitchen with the oversized chocolate ice cream cone she'd prepared for him, confident it was would bound to go far in taking his mind off his wounded ego.

"I can't… perform with him watching," he ranted. "I'm not into that kinda thing, Michelle."

"He's a cat, honey," she gently reminded, struggling to maintain a serious demeanor as she watched him pretend to barely notice the cone she was temptingly extending to him.

"Good thing, too, or he'd be up on voyeurism charges," he carried on.

"Animals don't perceive things the same way as humans do. Really, you're letting yourself get all worked up over nothing," she guaranteed him.

"Nothing, huh," he sullenly brooded, tightening his arms across his chest and subconsciously glancing down at his jeans, as if to be certain that all fasteners were secured in the event the degenerate should decide to swing by in the hopes of catching an encore.

What more could possibly go wrong today, he stewed in frustration. And just when everything had finally been going so right. He'd never been so happy to get home in his life. She'd smiled and beamed and reminded him of how handsome he had looked in his tuxedo as she'd worked to strip him of it. They'd knocked against walls and ravaged one another's mouths, peeling away the clothes that had formed a crumpled, scattered trail from the hall to the bedroom.

She had felt so incredibly good in his arms, her warm, bare skin pressed tightly against his own; her mouth, tasting so sweet from the slight remnants of champagne on her tongue. He had felt so relieved to finally have her home and alone again, entirely to himself and gloriously naked, all but for her earrings, and he his watch. Muffled music had filtered in from the living room's receiver, just audible enough to create some ambience without dictating or disrupting the moment or mood. The sun had just begun to go down, naturally dimming the light in the room. An early evening chill had been in the air, compelling her to curl her body up tight beneath him, blanketing herself with the warmth of his skin.

He thought of how her thick, reddish curls had splayed across the pillow, and the feeling of their silky texture inside his palm; how hungrily her body had responded to his; the way his heart had pounded so hard as she'd greedily transformed him, as always, into the equivalent of a personal playground. He reveled in the memory of how he had caught her stealing peeks at his face as she'd pushed all the buttons that made him groan. She had made him burn so hot, so fast, just by the way her fingertips had roamed around, searching for unique new ways to drive his atoms to the splitting point.

His mind flashed back to when he had raised her head with the crook of his arm and nudged her jaw back with his lips, clearing a path to kiss his way down her neck and across her delicate bones. He remembered how fragrant her skin had smelled as he'd dragged his mouth from here to there. He could still feel the tightening of her arms around his dampened shoulders and back, her faint, raspy whimpers and moans replaying inside his head, like music; like thrilling, sensual lyrics describing what his body was doing to hers. He recalled whispering how much he had missed her, despite their having spent every minute of the day together, but she had known what he meant. He'd pressed himself against her, slowly and subtly moving his hips the way he knew she liked.

The snug hold she'd had on him, enhanced by the silky warmth that pressed against him, had begun to slowly break him down. He remembered the quiver in his own voice, telling her how it felt to be part of her; how difficult it still was to believe that he was even actually with her; and how badly he ached to feel them coming apart in each other's arms, but at the same time wanting to hold out for hours. He had tried to program his mind toward taking it slow and making things last, but she'd shot his plan to hell, playfully squirming beneath him, lustfully taunting him; positioning to wholly devour him.

She'd snuggled her cheek closer to his and sighed deeply and excitedly, asking him to make good on his vow from the other night: to give her whatever she wanted from him.

"Anything, baby," he had heard himself pant in a heated whisper, his formerly smooth voice discernibly weakened. She had caught him off-guard, her words sending out sparks to every critical nerve ending. "Anything," he'd repeated as he'd gathered her more firmly into his arms, filling a fist with her curls and sliding the other beneath her. Once snug within his embrace, he'd bathed her face and mouth in kisses, playfully bit her bottom lip and begged to know the thoughts going on inside her mind.

She'd bashfully giggled and blushed as she'd whispered them against his ear. He had heard his own lungs aspirate hard with each word he had taken in. Everything had felt so magical and perfect and right with the world — until the king of kink had to go and show up and ruin it all, comfortably settling himself at the foot of the bed, like he owned the place, and staring directly at their entangled bodies, as if all he needed, now, was for someone to pass him a box of popcorn and a trench coat.

"Well…" Michelle broke into his thoughts, feigning disappointment with a deep, manufactured sigh. "If you really don't want this, I guess I can figure out some way to prop it up in the freezer until…"

"Just… It's gonna drip, Michelle," he snarled, foisting his hand out and taking the cone, as though left with no choice but to make the ultimate sacrifice and consume it for the sake of the couch and all innocent upholstery everywhere.

"Why don't you just relax for a few minutes while I—"

"I _was_ relaxed. I was _perfectly_ relaxed," he reminded her between selfless licks. "You, of all people, should know how relaxed I was…"

"Well, I… What I meant was _now_, dear. Put on the television, and I'll get Fluff-Fluff fed and settled into one of the rooms, and then you and I can—"

Her words dissipated and her eyes sealed shut in synch with the sound of his cell phone ringing. She couldn't believe it. Please just let this be a recorded message announcing the substantial savings to be gained by switching from cable to satellite. Don't let it be anything office-related — or, worse, family related. Not now. The poor man's been through enough for one day, she thought as she fetched the phone from the kitchen counter.

Between long, lengthy licks he silently listened to the voice on the other end, his stone-faced expression and dead-ahead stare revealing little in the way of the caller's identity, or the the nature of their one-way discussion.

Michelle watched for a few tense moments until wordlessly, and without eye contact, he thrust the phone out in her direction.

"For me?" she whispered in surprise, trying to imagine who would be calling her on his phone as she timorously brought it to her ear. "Oh, uhh… oh, my goodness," she interjected here and there, studiously absorbing a hurried rundown of the situation at hand. "Well, umm… Well, yes. Yes, of course. I… I can be there in ten minutes," she said, her eyes warily turning toward him in search of a reaction to her announcement. "Tell her not to worry about a thing," she concluded before slowly clicking his cell phone closed.

"I…"

"Just go," he softly said, his level of defeat and frustration so high that it seemed to have somehow affected the part of his brain that controlled screaming.

"I'm sorry, honey. I really am, but she specifically asked for me, and I can't just refuse. It's her first time, after all, and she's probably frightened as can be, and I _am_ her Maid of Honor," she gingerly reminded him.

"_Goooo_, Michelle," he repeated in the soft, controlled voice of a beaten man, silently cursing his luck as she hurried to change from his tuxedo shirt into something more Delivery Room-appropriate, elaborating upon the unfortunate turn of events, throughout.

He silently licked the ice cream down until it had leveled off with the top of the cone, wordlessly listening to the details of how well Pete had apparently taken the news of the caesarian until someone had explained to him what it meant, at which point he'd promptly hit the deck and had to be wheeled down to Emergency to have his head patched up again.

"I promise to be back just as soon as possible," she vowed up and down, hastily gathering her purse and phone, and searching the counter for the slip of paper she'd earlier scribbled the cab company's number upon. "They do these procedures all the time these days. Really. Those babies will be extracted in no time, honey. One, two, three. It's like pulling…"

"I think you should marry me," he quietly muttered.

"…a tooth these days, or performing a simple tonsillec— Wh... What did you—? Did you just—?"

"Take the car," he said, rising from the couch and crossing over to the kitchen counter to rustle up the keys.

"But you… I… I'm not sure that I heard—"

"The babies aren't gonna wait, Michelle," he scientifically informed her, shepherding her across the living room and planting a quick kiss against the side of her head before hustling her through the door and throwing the series of locks behind her.

That ought to get her home fast enough, he figured, his hand quickly digging into his pocket to assure that the wadded up cloth was still there.

Now alone in the apartment, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of dead silence, all but for the soft hum of various appliances, electronics, and the mismatched ticking of assorted clocks. Oddly, he couldn't remember if it was normal for the apartment to sound so quiet, or what it had even sounded like before Michelle had arrived in his life.

He supposed he ought to feel guilty for focusing solely and squarely on himself; for wallowing in self-pity, and for his self-centered attitude and behavior, in general. He hadn't meant to snap at her. He knew that none of this was her fault; that she'd hardly been left with a choice but to comply with Sarina's wishes. He was fully cognizant of all that. But tough. He had generously and valiantly put up with every frustrating obstacle, pitfall, and aggravation presented to him throughout the day — his mother; the cat; the grandbrats; the bikers; her Nazi housekeeper; and that lame P.I. and his damned SUV. He deserved to wallow in self-pity now, scowling pejoratives under his breath. He had more than earned it, in fact. Besides, he knew that Michelle understood that it wasn't her he was angry with; rather, this whole day had been a total disaster, with the exception of a few choice highlights, of course. But, still, to think of all the alone-time they had lost to one insufferable interruption or another; the hours they could have spent nuzzled together, lying on their sides and studying each other's eyes. He liked that. It made him feel serene.

Serene… The word sounded like "Sarina," which immediately aggravated him all over again. This was supposed to be _his _first date with Michelle, yet whose side was she standing by but Sarina's, while he stood in the middle of an empty apartment with the fuzzball staring up at him, as if to suggest that they channel-surf for a nice old 1940's musical.

He scowled as he looked around the place, wondering how the hell he was going to kill time until she returned, which would likely be hours from now, given the history of the day and coupled with his god-awful luck. He wasn't about to resume his search for the microchip; that was a totally lost cause, he knew. It would be easier to order a new one in the morning than to waste time calling and interrogating Basilio. Not even a guy like Burke could hope to succeed in scaring the chip's location out of that kid.

He thought for a moment about reading the papers, or going through one of his Dad's file folders, but his head just wasn't into it. He could absorb himself in one of those political pundit shows, but he would wonder what Michelle's views were on whatever topics were being debated, and would wish she were there to hash through the facts and talk out the issues.

He moved into the hallway, recalling how the ceiling light had been flickering a little the night before. Flipping the switch on the wall a few times, he took a moment while his eyes were cast upward to dash off a plea to the testosterone gods, begging them to keep the maternity process moving along without incident; to just let the doctors go in and extract those kids with the same level of skill and efficiency that he and his former Marines unit used to employ when tasked with the surgical removal of hostages.

On his way to the kitchen to search for a light bulb, a peripheral barrage of quick-cutting visuals flashing across the TV screen caught his eye. He shot a threatening look at the fur ball, who had comfortably settled into the couch with some part of its fat self evidently pressing against the remote.

"You're gonna break it, from cryssake," he snarled, holding the ice cream cone away with one hand while digging beneath the mass of fur with the other, a veritable eternity passing by the time he had finally found the thing and tossed it onto a shelf in the armoire.

Repulsed by the layer of fur now clinging to his hand, he headed toward the kitchen with the fuzzball following directly on his heels, prancing along like a seasoned troupe member of the Joffrey Ballet.

Holding the ice cream off to the side again, he rinsed his fur hand in disgust, unaware that droplets from the tip of the cone were dripping onto Gaylord's head, now, as it hungrily lapped up the original droplets that had hit the floor.

"Great," he snarled to himself, cramming the leaking cone into the garbage disposal before running his hands through the water again, then stooping down to pick up the cat, effectively coating the palms of both of his wringing-wet hands this time. "Your mother's gonna have a fit," he bristled, standing the fur ball in the sink and ripping a paper towel from the rack. He had barely begun the clean-up process when his cell phone jangled inside his back pocket.

"Honey, I… I'm not sure if I heard you correctly," Michelle continued as she wheeled her way toward the garage exit, picking right up in the conversation as though there had been no time lapse at all. "You think that I should _what?_ I must not have caught— "

"Carry meat," he clarified in an aggravated state, noting the transfer of fur from his hand to his phone, now wedged between his shoulder and ear.

"Wh… What in the—"

"It's an old Marines expression," he factually lied, engrossed in now having somehow brilliantly managed to rub the sticky chocolate even deeper into the fat cat's bottomless thicket of hair.

"A Marines expression?" she suspiciously delved.

"I have fur on my hands, Michelle," he abruptly announced, repulsed by the situation, yet grateful to have a legitimate reason to shift the conversation from meat to ice cream, sensing the unlikelihood of his story surviving her inevitable onslaught of upcoming questions.

"Wh… Well, how did _that_ happen?" she seriously hesitated to ask.

"I got chocolate on your cat," he regretted to inform her, tossing the used paper towel aside and pulling another one from its mooring, confident that the sound of a ripping paper towel would go far in reminding her of the level of damage he was capable of perpetrating; not only upon his own skin, but the fur of others. "He's following me all over the place, too. I can't take two steps without him right behind me," he scowled.

"He just wants to be in your company," she calmly explained.

"He doesn't even like me, Michelle," he sorely reminded her.

"Of course he does. You two just got off to a bad start," she gently assured him. "Did you remember to feed him?"

"I've gotta _feed_ him now?" he barked in astonishment.

"Well, yes, honey. Remember I was just about to feed him when the phone—?"

"Feed him what?" he demanded to know, prepared for a fight to the finish if she thought he was giving up any of the hors d'oeuvres Rosa had handed through the window just before he had sped through the gates.

"It's right inside the refrigerator. Just take the lid off," she calmly explained, sympathetic to his frustrated state and knowing that his ire was not meant for her, but for yet another unforeseen circumstance that was cutting into the precious little time they had left. The earlier blow to his ego hadn't helped matters, either, when he'd found himself rendered sexually useless in the face of Fluff-Fluff's fascinated stare. "That's all you have to do, dear. He can eat it right out of the container it's in. Okay? … Hmm?"

"Yeah, all right," he reluctantly acquiesced in a low mutter. "I just hope I don't make any mistakes, Michelle. I've never had to do this before," he quickly added, confident that implanting a little fear for her pumpkin chop's culinary welfare could only benefit his ultimate mission of getting her home, post-haste.

Abruptly ending the conversation with his usual snap of the cell phone's lid, he transferred the fuzzball from sink to floor, rinsed his furry hands again, and searched the refrigerator shelves, nauseated by the sight of raw chicken livers inside a container marked "Fluff-Fluff," neatly hand-rendered in a medieval scroll, with a little heart drawn in place of the hyphen.

He shook his head and walked away, unable to bear witness to the sight — not to mention the sound — of raw livers being scoffed down at lightning speed.

After the cat was finally finished making a pig of itself, and the revolting container had been slid inside the communal trash chute built into the wall a few doors down the hallway, he moved himself on to the bedroom with Gaylord glued to his heels once again, prancing directly behind him like his food had been laced with moron pills.

Eying the crumpled bedding, he started peeling the layers away, thinking Michelle would like the scent and sensation of tumbling around in clean, fresh sheets; especially given whatever it was Mrs. Sanchez washed them in that always made them smell so great.

Originally planning to stuff the used ones inside the washer for Mrs. Sanchez to deal with, he quickly changed his mind when he found half a jug of "fresh-scent" bleach on the overhead shelf. Emptying the other half on top of the sheets, he dropped the lid and hit the button.

With that task completed, he returned to the bedroom and spied Michelle's tapestry bag sitting on the floor beside the bed. As he contemplated unpacking it for her, a sudden rush ran through him at the thought of opening the closet each morning and seeing her things hanging in amongst his own. Given her over-active clean gene, she likely preferred things arranged in a neat and orderly manner, with all her stuff on one side and his on the other. But, for now, he gingerly draped each familiar office-wardrobe item over a hanger and scattered them here and there, preferring that they mix and touch and maybe even transfer their scents onto his jackets and shirts and things.

Midway through the task, he paused to answer his cell again, repulsed to discover that some of the fur from his hand had inadvertently transferred to his pocket when he'd earlier tucked the phone away.

"Y'know, the security guard in the maternity ward is a Marine who just rotated home from Iraq," Michelle just thought she would mention, now on her final leg of the journey down the hospital hallway, "and he's never heard the expression 'carry meat.'"

"Uh-huh… Ya didn't happen to ask him if he was recon with a sniper platoon…"

Silence fell over the other end. "Hmm?" he prompted her for an answer, squeaking open a dresser drawer to make room for all the silky things he'd found at the bottom of her bag.

"Well, I—"

"Platoons have their own expressions, Michelle. Like code," he informatively lied. "'Carry meat' essentially means 'just do what ya have to, and get the hell outta there, pronto.'"

"So where does the meat come in?" Work-Michelle's analytical mind wanted to know.

"It's code," he impatiently repeated.

"Code for what?"

"Just…I can't go into that part, Michelle. It's classified," he tersely explained.

"You're telling me that the United States Armed Forces found fit to classify 'carry—'"

"Just… _just_ get yourself home soon, okay? Geeziz," he grumbled, annoyed with himself for failing to think the details through.

Michelle shook her head on the other end. Men — indisputably the worst liars on Earth. Not a one of them possessed even so much as a glimmer of talent or hope. She didn't know why they even went to the trouble, as transparently implausible as their stories would always turn out to be. He might as well have just simply tacked on _"Oh, and by the way, I'm lying"_ to the end of his feeble Marines explanation. Not that it would've even mattered; she knew he hadn't said "carry meat." She wasn't exactly sure what she had heard, but she assuredly hadn't heard "carry meat."

Her heart started pounding again, as it had throughout the entire drive. She didn't want to think too long about what she thought she had heard. It made her head spin and her stomach flutter. Besides, it felt just a little too good to be true, anyway, and she'd just be crushed if, in fact, it turned out that she hadn't heard what she thought she had heard. She could also count it as among the most awkward and embarrassing moments of her life if she asked him, outright, if indeed he had said "I think you should marry me," only to be gently and tenderly told that, no, he had actually said something else. It might even throw their relationship back a step a two, spooking him with the topic of marriage before he was prepared to approach it himself.

Best she just put it out of her mind, as next-to-impossible a feat as it was, with her internal need-to-know mechanism now teetering on the brink of critical mass, at levels capable of putting Chernobyl to shame.

"Honey, I have to go now," she concluded with a sigh, spying a nurse at the end of the corridor, rapidly flashing hand-signal reminders about cell phone usage on hospital premises. "But I was thinking I'd stop off on the way back and pick up some Chinese food, or maybe a…"

"_I'll_ take care of dinner. _You_ just get yourself home, y'hear?" he insisted before signing off with the usual short clap of his phone.

Home… She still liked the way that word sounded, even when he barked it at her.

The apartment fell dead-quiet again. He missed her. It surprised him how much, on one hand; on the other hand, not at all, as his mind flashed back to the epiphany he'd earlier had in the car, listening to Michelle softly and mindlessly humming along to a jingle on the radio. A feeling of peacefulness had suddenly come over him; a deep, soul-satiating peacefulness that was almost surreal. His core had felt so mellow and harmonious at that moment in time, just from her humming like that. It had struck him so clearly that this was the way he wanted to feel all the time: complete and whole and blissfully tranquil. It was as though he had found his place in the universe; his center; his clear destination. The cat carrier over his shoulder would one day be sitting alongside one of those baby car seats… or two, or three.

It had bothered him to think of how much time had already been lost. He had spent a whole year staring at her, and keeping his distance, when he could've been building a life with her. He could've been transporting his wife and son home, then and there, from Sunday dinner with the grandparents. He could've had his Mom off his back a year ago.

That had been the point at which he'd decided tonight was going to be the night; that he would follow his heart, as his Dad had advised, and just go for it.

A familiar mixture of pure elation and fearful anticipation washed over him as the reality hit him all over again. He didn't know how he would do it; what he would say; or where they should be when he popped the question, or how he should segue into it all. His mind scrambled to recall all the tidbits he had read in those men's magazines over the years, failing to come up with more than "restaurant" and "romantic."

With fingertips dragging up and down the side of his face, he wandered into the bathroom, deciding to start the rest of the evening off right by giving her baby cheeks a break from his course, needle-like five-o'clock beard. Opening the medicine cabinet to pull out his various shaving things, the first thing he spied was the band-aid box, which immediately prompted a warm chuckle, recalling her miffed reaction to his ingeniously clever scheme. His smile grew broader as he reached for the bottle of aftershave, remembering how fast she had sped through the door, gifted with full and unfettered snooping rights to the bathroom down the hall.

Everywhere he looked, in fact, reminded him of one great moment or another: including the toilet, where he'd felt himself falling deeper in love in tandem with her every heart-wrenching, rib-wracking heave; the bathtub rim, where the furball now sat precisely where Michelle had been when she'd massaged that lotion into her lean, curvy legs; the bathtub itself, where she'd taunted him over his Mr. Bubble and Bismark model, and overall lack of Zap-A-Gap knowledge, just before his watch had sounded, kicking off the celebration of their very first anniversary; the medicine cabinet on her side of the counter, housing the tampon box that had started it all, alongside the box of condoms that had conjured the memory of Chris's theory regarding true love.

Midway through slathering shaving cream around his face, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket again, wanting to call her to say he was sorry for giving her a hard time about the whole Sarina thing. He wanted to tell her he loved her, too, lest she'd forgotten amid all his snapping and barking at her. But he hung up after getting her voice mail, realizing that the procedure was obviously underway by now.

Punching in another number, he used his free hand to glide the razor up his neck and over his jaw while patiently counting off the endless rings on the other end.

"Hey, I need you to do something for me," he finally said, just as he had been about to hang up.

Ten minutes across town, Michelle checked her watch before starting the engine and pulling out of the parking space. Between the surgical procedure itself, and getting Sarina settled in, and congratulating the elated, head-bandaged new father, who'd just been released from Emergency, more than two-and-a-half hours had ticked away. Applying a little extra pressure to the pedal, she felt her head swimming in myriad directions. She was hungry and weary, and could do with a stiff drink right about now, quite frankly. The miracle of birth had been tiring business from both an emotional and physical standpoint. She wondered how obstetricians could do it everyday — particularly the caesarean way, which had been a little scary and somewhat gruesome. But it had all been worth it to hear each fraternal twin's first squeals of life as they'd entered the world, one more boisterously than the other.

She thought about Sarina, and what a trooper she had been. An experienced "mama" who knew how to hold on tight.; that was for sure. Her hand still ached from the firmness with which the woman had squeezed it, as though she were gripping a sissy bar through the world's longest high-speed turn in the road.

As she crawled along through unusually heavy traffic for that hour on a Sunday night, she reflected on the deep bond that had formed the instant she had taken her position at Sarina's side. A newfound understanding of Tony and Petey's friendship had crystallized in her mind at that moment. She was the stranger who had come to the rescue when Sarina was down and needed a hand this time, ironically similar in circumstances to Tony's experience when Pete had come charging onto the scene, just in the nick of time.

Her mind drifted to thoughts of food, wondering what kind of dinner he had planned — not that it even mattered at this point, as long as it was edible and plentiful. But as she finally approached the apartment door, she was surprised to notice the lack of aroma from anything cooking inside. It didn't mean that he hadn't started dinner, she ravenously told herself; he could've ordered in from somewhere — possibly even from the Thai place. He knew how much she loved Thai food; especially Coconut Shrimp, the sweet scent of which she swore she could smell with every step deeper into the living room.

"Honey, I'm home!" she called out, giggling to herself at how funny the old cliché had sounded exiting from her lips.

"In here," he called out from the bedroom as she hurried down the hall in the opposite direction, eager to see if her cookie boy was still in one piece. Finding him blissfully crashed out on the couch in the office, she left the door open and hurried up the hallway, mindful to close the bedroom door behind her this time, which would give her cookie boy free reign of the apartment, but preclude him from stopping by again and destroying her other cookie boy's libido.

Noticing the light emanating from the wide-open bathroom door, her heart sank a little — not that it wouldn't be wonderful to join him in a hot, soothing, surprise Mr. Bubble bath right about now. She surely could use it after all the tension of the delivery room, further exacerbated when her future mother-in-law and her girlfriends had attempted to storm it, only to land themselves in the hospital's equivalent of a holding pen until her future father-in-law could arrive and take custody of the unruly crew.

Hoping that their hot bath included a bevy of takeout cartons floating on some kind of makeshift raft, Michelle rounded the corner and came to a sharp halt in her tracks, nearly choking on the gasp of shock that gripped her throat in a stranglehold.


	24. His Mission Accomplished

**LOVE AT FIRST DATE**

_**Chapter 24: His Mission Accomplished**_

"Oh, my goodness!" she breathlessly squealed, bringing her hands up to tent her nose and mouth as her eyes darted around in amazement.

She hardly knew what to focus on first: Large white, bowl-shaped planters, overflowing with explosions of daisies, sat at either ends of the counter, with another between the two sinks; the tub was filled, though not with bubbles, but some kind of white flowers floating on the surface, interspersed among his Bismark battleship, submarine, and an impressive aircraft carrier she'd never even seen before. A Persian rug had been dragged in from the guest room, taking up most of the bathroom's expansive floor space, with pillows from the beds and linen closets heaped in a pile across from him, there for her to obviously recline against should she ever eventually be able to move her paralyzed body. A wicker basket sat in the center of the rug, stuffed with a variety of berries, cheeses, and other small finger food-sized things.

And then there was the john, which had been transformed into a veritable shrine: an altar, completely covered, from the lid of the tank on down, with cascading white linen that crumpled into a delicate heap of excess fabric at the floor. Centered was an ice-filled wine bucket, chilling a bottle of champagne and two inverted crystal flutes. The two-by-two framed picture he had earlier stolen from her apartment, plus an unframed Polaroid of the two of them standing on Francoise's altar, were propped up against the bucket.

Down at the other end, propped up against the tub in a comfortable slump was him, clad in nothing but white cotton boxers, with a few bed pillows wedged between his bare back and the cold porcelain.

"What's all this?" she gasped through her fingers, still barely able to access her voice as her eyes further leapt around the room, this time drawn to the buttery color of thick satin ribbons festively tied beneath the rims of the daisy planters, wine bucket, and wicker basket.

"I thought you said you liked picnics," he lightly mumbled, his mind seemingly occupied with whatever he was typing into the laptop balancing on his thighs. "Here. Go make yourself beautiful," he said, pausing long enough to produce a white, rectangular gift box from the floor beside him, crisscrossed with yet another yellow satin ribbon.

"For me?" she sputtered, still thoroughly aghast at the lengths he had gone to surprise her.

He gave the gift box a slight shake in the direction of the bedroom to get her moving, instantly kicking her inner need-to-know mechanism into activation.

"Don't take forever," he grumbled as she bolted through the door. "I've been starving for hours waiting for you," he exaggerated somewhat, having steadily fed for the past ten minutes from a separate dish of Maria's hors d' oevres, which he had prepared for his own personal consumption and parked on the floor beside him.

Placing the box on the bed and quickly untying the satiny ribbon, Michelle's hands trembled as she excitedly wrenched the lid off and pushed aside the soft sheets of tissue paper. Her eyes instantly pooled up as they fell upon the white, long-sleeved CUBS t-shirt he had given her to wear the day before.

"Is this really for me? To _keep?_" she called out to double-check, her cheeks aching from the broad smile that had implanted itself in her face.

"Yeah, but I get to wear it whenever I want," he clearly specified, "so take good care of it."

"Oh, I will, honey," she vowed, hurriedly sliding out of her Delivery Room ensemble and into the supreme sacrifice he had made for her.

"Don't shrink it in the dryer, or anything," he sternly added, despite knowing that a student of Frau FrankenNazi would rather commit suicide than go through life with having made such a rookie mistake.

"I won't," Michelle assured him, reaching for her tapestry bag on the floor and noticing it was empty. Her eyes quickly turned to behold the sight of her clothes dispersed throughout his closet, compelling her heart to hasten its pace. She was almost afraid to think what she was thinking, but nevertheless reeled with breathless excitement at the prospect that he might actually be planning to—

She quickly stopped herself and vanquished the thought from her mind, refusing to permit her heart to run away with her better sense, despite the rapidly growing evidence that he'd never said "carry meat" at all.

"You're snooping, Michelle," his soft voice wafted out from the bathroom upon hearing the squeak of the dresser drawer.

"I'm not," she called back, flustered with excitement as she grabbed a pair of those black silk panties he liked so much, fighting the urge to neatly fold the other things he'd simply jammed inside the drawer.

"All right, then," he mock-grumbled as she reentered and sank to her knees beside him, cranking his head away from his laptop to press a warm, grateful kiss against his lips. "This was so _sweeeeet_ of you, honey. I can't believe you did all this," she cooed against his cheek, struggling to suppress her laughter at the thought of a picnic in a bathroom, of all places. Leave it to a man to give deep thought to the perfect picnic setting and come up with a bathroom as the final decision. But she immediately understood the significance that particular room held for him. It was, after all, where they'd celebrated their very first anniversary.

"I live to make you happy," he reminded her, lest she had forgotten — or he had forgotten to tell her.

"What's that?" she asked, nodding toward the printout coming through the small portable printer at his side.

"Your copy," he said with a chin-shooing motion in the direction of the heap of pillows, taking a minute to fold the paper five ways, accordian-style, concealing all but the first question before passing it over to her.

"My copy of what?" she lightly inquired, about to stuff a handful of raspberries into her mouth, with the hopes that the swallowing action might help dislodge the heart in her throat, but suddenly losing her appetite from the thought of consuming food only feet away from the john.

"It's a compatibility test I found online," he casually lied, having spent an hour meticulously honing each of the five questions himself while Olivia had scrubbed and decorated the bathroom for him. "Go on," he said, only to be promptly placed on hold by Work-Michelle, as he might have expected, who silently scanned the question first.

"'How torn up would you be,'" she began to recite, "'if you were to… lose your housekeeper?'"

Her eyes immediately shot up and cast a wary glance his way. "Where did you say you found this test?" she suspiciously queried.

"Online somewhere. It looked like fun," he responded.

_Oh, and by the way, I'm lying,_ she mentally completed his statement for him, simultaneously sighing with relief that the document appeared to be just another of his pop quizzes, and not what she had initially feared: a prenuptial agreement — the world's most unromantic prelude to a marriage proposal. But no sooner had thoughts of nuptials re-entered her mind did she diligently push them away, reminding herself not to jump any guns. Just because he'd gone to such extremes to prepare a romantic environment did not necessarily mean he had anything more in mind than a romantic evening.

"So?" he anxiously prodded.

"Define 'lose,'" she answered. "Do you mean, like, losing her in a crowd, or—"

"Losing her, like… if she were to quit, or something," he elaborated, cagily feigning a best-guesstimate of what the anonymous author most probably had in mind.

"Or 'something'?" Michelle repeated with another small, suspicious frown, testing the strength of his angelic veneer.

"It's an easy enough question," he innocently remarked, dismissing the notion that she could possibly be on to him already. Not after only one lone and highly amorphous question. She'd have to be one of those psychic people, like he'd seen in that TV documentary about the CIA's efforts in the late 1960's to telepathically spy on the Russians.

Watching her studiously mull the question, he felt his palms begin to grow moist. He wondered if maybe this approach hadn't been such a good idea after all. Not the picnic part — he distinctly remembered her having said something about liking picnics, and the bathroom was where he had officially fallen in love with her, holding her hair back as she'd heaved into the john, which Olivia had done such a nice job transforming into a shrine for him. A picnic was also as close as he could get to a romantic restaurant setting, as the men's magazines were constantly preaching, without actually going out to one, which he definitely didn't want to do. It was risky enough asking her to marry him in the middle of their first date. If he was going to get shot down, or placed on hold, he wanted to at least be rendered devastated in the comfort of his own home.

The quiz part was giving him second thoughts, however. But these _were_ important questions that he needed to get her feelings on, which there hadn't been time to broach before. And there _were_ some things a man was entitled to know before taking so huge and life-altering a step as wedlock, after all. He'd waited long enough for his "ten" to come along, and a nerve-racking proposal wasn't something he ever intended to do over again. Almeida men's hearts weren't built for do-overs. Almeidas were old-fashioned, one-woman men who handed their hearts over for life.

"Well?" he nudged after a small eternity, placing his rapidly growing anxiety on momentary hold while his brain photographed the sight of the baby cheeks he adored.

"Well… it would depend a lot on the circumstances under which I had 'lost' her," she logically concluded. "Can you give me an example?"

"This isn't a multiple choice," he kindly informed her. "It's a straight-out yes or no: 'Would you be upset if your housekeeper didn't work for you anymore,'" he repeated, entering the modified phraseology into his document.

"Well, just wait a second, now, dear. I mean, she's been with me for seven years, after all. Can't you just give me an example of the circumstances?" she persevered to his dismay.

"Say the circumstances were just fine," he impatiently hypothesized, his finger already hovering above the "X" key. "Say she got two weeks severance — and a bonus, which she didn't even deserve — and was perfectly happy about it all, 'cause she was planning on going back to the homeland anyway… to take care of a sick—cow, or whatever."

Michelle cocked her head and sternly glared through squinted eyes, signaling disapproval of both his loosely veiled insult and the proud smirk adorning his face.

"Well?" he asked after generously allowing her even more time to stare at the ceiling.

"Would I have another housekeeper right away? Or would there be downtime in between, where I'd have to take care of the cleaning myself?" she needed to know. "That's difficult with the long hours we keep."

He gazed off to the side for a stupefied moment. "You'd have another housekeeper right away," he confirmed.

"A good one?" she checked.

"Well, if by 'good' you mean psychotic, like the one you have now, no," he made clear. "She wouldn't be 'good,' she'd be sane. Sane and competent—like Mrs. Sanchez, for instance."

She pondered his not-so-hypothetical question for a few moments longer, ignoring the repeated times he checked his watch, like a man in front of a firing squad waiting for his rescuers to show.

"Well?" he gently prodded again.

"I'm thinking, honey," she said. "You can't just ask a pertinent question, like 'losing your housekeeper,' and expect a person to answer in a flash. I need time to consider a few things," she explained.

"You're supposed to answer right away… off the top of your head," he reiterated the rules, the patience in his voice beginning to noticeably wane. "This is supposed to be spontaneous."

"Where does it say that?" she asked, tilting her chin upward, as if contemplating leaning in and peering over the monitor's edge.

"Just—let's just move on to the next one, okay? Geeziz," he replied, shooing her eyes with one hand while assigning a failing "X" with the other.

"Do I get to come back to that one?" she queried, feeling it only fair.

He ignored her.

"Question two: men's boxers,'" he grumbled, recalling his stiff tuxedo shirt collar and feeling his neck itch all over again.

"'Do men's boxers get starch,'" she quietly read aloud, her brow slowly furling into a studious frown. "Why would that matter to the woman if the man had a housekeeper?" she asked. "I mean, if the woman had a housekeeper, the man would likely have one, too, since couples tend to seek out mates within their own socioeconomic circles," she intellectually surmised. "Correct?"

He stared in disbelief.

"So, wouldn't starch be a matter for the man to work out with his housekeeper?" she logically concluded. "Hmm?"

"Say the housekeeper wasn't around and the decision was yours," he clarified the obvious, his eyes widening to the point of pain at the sight of bare legs and sexy black silk crawling over to the champagne bucket.

"Well, I guess I would just simply _ask_ the man, in that case," she logically deduced.

"And what if the guy wasn't around, either?" he prodded.

"I'd, umm… Well, I'd probably call him on his cell. Certainly a man who could afford a housekeeper would be carrying a cell ph—"

"You're missing the spirit of the question, Michelle," he impatiently pointed out, dutifully uncorking the bottle she'd just delivered with a one-handed crawl. "Say… Just say the guy was being held prisoner and couldn't be reached, okay?"

"It's a moot point, because I wouldn't be doing laundry at a time like that," she pragmatically stated.

He shook his head in bewilderment, filling the glasses and sending her back to her pillow perch before assigning another "X" and keying up to the next question.

"How am I doing?" she asked.

"Not well," he professorially assured her.

"Shouldn't you be answering these questions, too?" she airily asked, her inquiry promptly met with a vacant stare.

"It's a one-way questionnaire," he artfully dodged. "Ya come across them a lot in the men's magazines."

"Uh-huh," she responded, wondering how long ago he figured she had fallen off the turnip truck.

"Do ya think we can just stay on point here, please?" he conspicuously deflected. "You're supposed to be taking this seriously, Michelle."

"I thought it was supposed to be fun," she reminded him of his own words, compelling yet another blank stare, followed by a subtle grimace.

"Question three," he muttered, radiating the enthusiasm normally reserved for his budget meetings with Homeland's accountants.

"Did I get that one right?" she asked. "How does the scoring work?"

"Never mind," he muttered.

"Is there a prize for this?"

"Not at the rate you're going," he confidently reassured her, unconscious of his hand briefly sliding behind his back to ensure that the satin ribbon-tied bandaid box was still where he had handily stashed it, inside the waistband of his boxers.

"But there _is_ a prize to be had, you're saying," she asked, despite having already uploaded its location into her memory banks.

"You could call it that, I suppose," he cryptically replied with a manufactured Cheshire-like grin, contrasting sharply with the hellish jitters slowly percolating deep inside his gut; which was not to mention the thin layer of sweat coating him, from brow to toe, on the outside.

He didn't know why he should even _be_ nervous, much less sweating it out like a freshman pledge on the precipice of Hell Night. It's not like the picnic thing hadn't gone over like a smash hit, or he hadn't invested proper time in planning out how to pull this damned thing off. He'd even come up with the perfect segue out of the quiz and into the conversation, which had struck him, out of nowhere, like an engagement gift from the testosterone gods in the form of an epiphanous lightening bolt.

If anything, he shouldn't be nervous, but aggravated, which he also was, over how fundamentally unfair it was for the guy to have to be the one to do the asking. Michelle was so much better suited for this kind of thing. If _she_ were the one doing this, they'd be in bed by now; the task that Frau SauerPuss had rudely interrupted would've already been completed; and they'd have half of the rest of their lives mapped out.

"Don't you want to know about the babies?" Michelle temptingly interrupted.

"Two boys, fraternal. Seven pounds, two ounces and five pounds, ten ounces," he unceremoniously rattled off, his Mom having phoned in the statistics likely before Petey had even been apprised. "Can we get back to answering the questions, now? ... Please? This one coming up is important."

"Don't you even want to know how well I did?" she asked.

"Later, baby," he mildly pleaded. "After we're done here, okay? Go on… Question three…"

"'How would you feel," she dutifully complied, "if your husband wanted to get a pool table?'"

He awaited her answer with bated breath, having always envisioned himself with his own regulation-sized pool table. He would've already owned one by now — that, and one of those industrial stainless steel Viking stoves — had only his apartment been able to accommodate their girth.

"Well, I'm… I'm not married," she pragmatically pointed out, without even choking on the word, "so the question doesn't really apply."

"Just—just say that you were," he anxiously pressed.

"Well, I… I think I would be fine with that, just as long as it wasn't located in the living room," she answered, recognizing the ripe opportunity to recoup a few lost points from her starched-boxers answer. "Did I get that one?" she checked.

"Let's just keep going, shall we?" he pleasantly suggested, wondering if his ears were deceiving him or if his voice had just gone up an octave. The sweat machine was chugging along nicely, too, he thought. Even his fingertips felt clammy against the keys, now. He made a mental note to consult Max about the inordinate amount of moisture his glands seemed capable of producing. This couldn't be normal; there had to be some kind of medical explanation for this. He'd gone through boot camp generating less sweat, for cryssake.

Michelle found her throat tightening in anticipation of vocalizing the words her eyes had just absorbed: "'If somebody were to ask you to marry him," she nonetheless managed to smoothly enunciate, "would you say 'yes' right away, or would you 'need time to think'?"

She needed time to clear her throat of the salivia she'd unwittingly vacuumed in. A few moments to find her breath, and gather her wits, wouldn't hurt any, either. Granted, from the very first "housekeeper" question, it had been brutally obvious that he had written the quiz. And she had even suspected, from as far back as the bedroom, that he might actually be planning to propose tonight. But not until she had heard herself read that last question aloud did it hit her, like a runaway diesel, that a proposal was not only conceivably possible, but likely waiting in the wings, perched to present itself at any time now.

She felt his eyes trying to bore through her forehead and into her thoughts, and thanked God that he couldn't see the home movie playing inside her head: a deluge of memories of her Bud doll — the equivalent of Ken — vicariously proposing to her through Tammy — the equivalent of Barbie, which her aunts wouldn't let her have because they felt that the doll was too sexy looking. It occurred to her, now, that she must have rehearsed for The Big Moment at least a million times with Bud, concocting all sorts of pithy, confidently delivered responses to his ceaseless begging; her retorts always flawlessly delivered in a perfectly "cool, calm, and collected" manner, as Katherine Hepburn would always say—or was it Barbara Stanwyck? No, no, it was someone with darker hair, like maybe Sophia Lor — _good God, it was Katie Winters, from those old Secret Deodorant commercials!_ Here she stood at the threshold of arguably _the_ most romantic moment of her entire female existence — having invested literally _countless_ hours preparing a veritable plethora of pithy retorts, just so she could have a selection on hand for The Big Moment — only to now find herself mere _minutes_ away, with nothing in her memory banks but dialogue from an old deodorant commerc—

"Well?" he asked, his soft voice coming through like the William Tell Overture inside her head.

"Well… umm…" she stalled for another eons-long second, forgetting the question's precise phraseology and needing to quickly scan it again. "That would, umm… depend, I suppose," she numbly replied, conscious of a berry she had been playing with and, apparently, squished in her hand at some point, and wondering how to discreetly dispose of it now.

"Depend on… like, what?" he audibly croaked, emitting sweat at a rate of speed capable of landing him in a hospital bed, if it kept up very much longer.

"On, umm… Well, I guess it would depend on who was doing the asking," she calmly said.

"That's fair," he heard himself nonchalantly reply over the deafening roar of his heart madly pumping blood to his vital organs.

He busied his eyes on the screen, wishing he could busy his hands at the keyboard, too, but finding them somewhat paralyzed again; like the way they were in the vestibule of the little Italian couple's shop, when he'd told her he loved her for the first time — or the third, if one wanted to get technical about it.

"Which one are we up to now? Hmm?" he asked, cajoling her on with a calm, laid-back attitude, though feeling borderline nauseous from the mini-somersaults his stomach was now performing, in anticipation of the last, critical question coming up.

"Number five," Michelle replied, nervously unfolding the final accordian flap: "If some guy were to… propose to you," she calmly recited, despite the sensation of eyes locked solidly upon her again, "only without getting down on one knee, due to a war injury," she continued, without even laughing, "would it have any affect upon your answer?"

Tense silence ensued, his palms moistening to greenhouse levels.

"Well?" he asked.

The unusual pitch and tremor in his voice compelled her eyes to glance up and zero in on the familiar deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes, and a few stray locks against his brow, which could only be described as soaked. It surprised her, at first, to see how genuinely rattled he was, but it oddly comforted her, as well, to know that she wasn't the only one who sweating it out; that he, in fact, seemed to have her beat, hands-down, in that department.

Even more surprising than the "proposal" part of his question, however, was her jarring reaction to the latter part. It was as though someone had taken hold of her reins and yanked hard, halting her angst dead in its tracks and redirecting her focus, instead, onto a picture that was only just now becoming clear to her: Looming ominously over his head — and ten times worse than the nerve-racking task, itself, of having to do the asking — was that dorky one-knee routine that men, for whatever unfathomable reason, were commonly known to execute, but which simply just wasn't his style at all. It fit him like an itchy wool suit three sizes too small. It was a gesture that maybe worked for the uber-pretentious Valentino types, with a flair for the melodramatic; or the follower types, who marched to the beat of whatever the uber-pretentious felt was cool. But not for the Tony Almeidas; the Captain Greggs; the meat-carriers. These were not men who were meant to propose to a woman Amy Vanderbilt-style; they did things on their own terms, their own way. These were the men of Navarone. The men who held anniversary celebrations and picnics in bathrooms, should it so happen to strike their fancy.

"No," she confidently stated, and meant it. She'd never even made Bud get down on one knee, knowing even way back then that it would only make her laugh. "Outside of a 1930's movie, that's always struck me as a little silly looking, don't you think? ... A little too mushy and over the top, for my taste."

His eyes flickered from the ensuing surge of love that engulfed both body and soul. That was exactly how he'd always felt, dreading the thought of having to put himself through that idiotic gesture. He was fully prepared to do it, of course. If her answer had given him even the slightest inkling that she wanted or expected a guy to perform that dopey ritual, he would bite the bullet and hit the deck. He would do whatever she wanted of him. But her firm response made it abundantly clear, now, that he was totally and officially off the hook. If a doubt had even existed as to whether she was indeed his 'it,' all vestiges would've immediately vanished based upon that one answer alone.

"Okay, then," he nonchalantly replied, his elation rapidly replaced with the gnawing realization that this was it.

"Do I get the prize now?" she coyly inquired, deciding to gift him with a perfectly smooth and seamless segue directly into the ring-presentation phase, therein enabling him to skip the preamble phase entirely. She felt it was the least she could do, to help ease some of his burden. So all he really needed to do now, she figured, was reach behind his back and—

"We'll see," he cluelessly muttered, pretending to tally her points, which bought him time to quickly run through his segue one last time, to ensure he had it straight in his head and that the bridges and logic-flow were sound.

He paused to mentally command his paralyzed hand to swipe the sweat from above his lip. He had no idea this would be so hard. The mens' magazines had always made it sound like men would be at perfect ease, and in total control, if only they followed the recommendations laid out by the authors. He silently cursed himself, now, for the decades he'd spent only skimming the highlights, never taking any of it too seriously.

The lid of his laptop snapped shut.

His eyes shot up.

She had somehow managed to creep up on him without his sensing her approach. His razor-sharp instincts had been rendered defunct. With nothing more than two warm lips and a champagne tongue, she had neatly and fully divested him of every skill he had honed in the field.

"I want my prize," she purred a warning into his mouth, easing him downward into the pillows, in what might've been a more comfortable position had his body not long since transmuted into a tree-like state of rigidity.

"You're looking at it," he nonetheless glibly replied, her second perfect, foolproof segue-on-a-silver-platter zooming right over his head. She could hardly believe it; he wouldn't have even needed to speak. All he would've had to do was simply allow her to snatch the "prize," open it up, gasp in shock — bing, bang, boom.

"I already _have_ you. I want the one you hid," she tried again, mischievously sliding her hand beneath him. But no sooner had her fingertips made contact with something metal-like when his own hand had come out of nowhere and captured her wrist.

"Uhh… I don't recall declaring a winner," he wryly reminded her, shifting her onto the floor beside him and clearing some pillow space for head to join his, nose-to-nose.

He could't take this sweating a minute more. It was time to get this insufferable torture over and done with, he lambasted himself. Another minute of languishing in this debilitating mental state and he'd be on the streets in his bare feet and boxers, wielding a Magnum.

And _how_ the hell had he even managed to get himself into this state? This was not rocket surgery. Buck up, give her the ring, and let's get this life back on the road, for cryssake.

"Look, umm… I know we haven't been seeing each other for very long, or anything, but we _have_ known each other for almost a year now," he began, phase-one of his segue now neatly out of the way: No need for dating if you already know each other really well, correct?

"I know," she gently responded in that soft, soothing way of hers.

"Well, umm… So, I was thinking about some stuff, like… y'know, like, that contingency plan you wanted us to have, in case ya slipped up and called me 'honey,' or something, at work, and I, uhh… So I was just thinking that, y'know…we, umm…"

A painfully long, uncomfortable moment of sweaty silence ensued. His mind had gone cloudy for a brief moment, and then it went blank all together. Not "blank" in a way that meant he couldn't remember his name or his license plate number. Just blank in the way that meant his segue was gone. Not "gone" in a way that necessarily meant it was gone forever. Just gone at the moment — the _precise_ moment he needed it, of course.

And what better timing, too, when ya stop to think about it. After all, the _front_ half of his proposal had been perfectly disastrous, with all his sweating and stressing throughout. So why not have the _back_ half turn into a disaster, as well?

"And since we've _known_ each other for so long," Work-Michelle gently chimed in, hoping a quick review might kick his memory back into gear, "and we _don't_ want to slip up at work, as you were saying…"

He stared at her. He had no idea what she was trying to get at — and with _his_ own segue, no less. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He'd never even known it was possible for a human mind to evacuate itself like that.

"…Because, well…" Michelle trudged onward, watching his fingertips making mincemeat of his brow, "… after all, two _single_ people calling each other 'honey' in the middle of an office…"

"Uh-huh," he agreed, not knowing what else to do but nod and agee and stare — oh, and sweat. _That _he had no trouble doing. _That_ he was a champion at.

Still nothing. Nothing but the sound of his inner voice lambasting himself for not jotting his segue onto his hand, which even the average moron would've thought to do, but hey…

"Of course, _married_ people don't have to worry about such things," Michelle persevered, laying a path of segues for him with a sledge hammer at this point, "but _single_ people… Well… you know how people in the office love to talk…"

"Yeah, umm…"

His mouth had been open all this time, he just now realized. Closing it, he turned his eyes upward, for just a flash, loving to know where the hell the testosterone gods were in his hour of need. Was no one available to shut this sweat shop down, for starters? Was not _one_ deceased men's magazine author available to tear himself away from his celestial typewriter long enough to jam his segue back in his head?

He began to seethe. This was not right. _No man_ should have to go through this kind of hell. And _who's_ the guy who started this ritual in the first place, he'd like to know, condemning every man thereafter to follow suit? _Which _genius invented the one-knee maneuver? He wanted names.

"So, umm… like I was saying," he continued, not knowing what else to say. But he couldn't just go on staring at her, for cryssake. Her eyes were already beginning to show signs of concern; how far behind could "pity" be? No, he had to say something. Anything. And now. _Anything _was better than nothing, at this stage of the game. He cursed himself for having said "like I was saying," of all things. There was _no_ seguing out of "like I was saying" for a man who was lucky he could still remember his own license plate num…

"_Geeziz!"_ he exploded, at the end of his rope, bolting upright and yanking the bandaid box from its mooring, angrily muttering something about preferring "to go through that first-time-"I-love-you" nightmare a thousand times over" than to have to "suffer another second of this living hell." _No one_ should have to endure this torture, he shared, loudly reminding her that he'd "tracked ticking warheads under less stress than this, for cryssake."

"_Here, _this is for _you,_" he grouchily announced, pushing the box firmly into her palm.

Punching his pillows into shape, he resettled himself with a thud and heaved a deep sigh of relief; about ten times deeper, if even possible, than after she'd liberated him of that damned tampon box.

She hardly even heard a word of what he was ranting about. Her heart was beating too loudly in her throat. Though mildly shocked when he'd first exploded, she found herself absorbed with amazement, now, at how saturated one side of the ribbon was: the side that had pressed against his skin all this time, apparently. The other side was completely dry.

"Y'know, before—when you said that you thought I should carry meat," she breathlessly mentioned, gingerly pulling the strand on the bow and watching the ribbon fall away. "That's not what you really said… was it."

"Just… I'm getting a headache, Michelle," he sternly informed her, wishing she could even begin to appreciate the abject hell he had just gone through — and all for her sake, too. She should only know how much careful planning had gone into trying to make this damned proposal a moment she'd always remember — which he supposed he _had_ accomplished. Shoving the ring at her like that _was_ something she'd always remember, along with the entire _rest _of the family, to be sure.

"I would've done the whole down-on-bended-knee thing, too, if it weren't for an injury I sustained in Desert Storm," he just wanted to clearly state for the record, therein formally enabling himself to remind everyone of that part, at their twentieth anniversary party, where he'd be hearing the story told for only about the eight-hundreth time by then.

"I understand, honey," she gently assured him, mentally adding _Oh, and by the way, I'm lying _to the tail of his utterly untrue claim. She had promptly cracked into his medical file directly following their first interview, when she'd fallen in love with him. He hadn't received any injury to his knee. Just who in the world did he think _he_ was kidding.

"And besides, you said yourself that you thought the whole one-knee routine was a bit much," he grumbled, turning onto his side to see her expression as she gingerly creaked the lid of the box open. "I, umm… Here, gimme," he mumbled when he noticed her hands trembling a little.

As he pulled the bunched-up cloth out, a small smile — his first throughout this entire hellish affair — settled into the corners of his mouth in response to her eyes igniting with excitement, and her skin radiating a glow that looked like someone had blown a handful of angel dust onto her face.

His own heart leapt a little, too, to see how much more dazzling the sparkle was under the bathroom lights. It had stunned him enough in his Dad's office, but nothing compared to the mini fireworks display it was performing now.

"I, umm… Here, I should really…" he softly murmured, clasping the ring in his fingertips and holding it out to her shaky hand. "I'm not really sure you've even earned this, y'know," he softly chided. "You didn't exactly pass that quiz with flying colors."

He wasn't certain she had heard him. She seemed so genuinely stunned, and at a complete loss for words, to his extreme delight. He didn't know how he'd managed to stupefy her into speechlessness, but it made his chest expand a little. The sweat machine had even begun to wind down, he noticed.

"So, I, umm… I was thinking that if you were to agree to marry me, ya see… we wouldn't be needing that contingency plan, since engaged people would be, y'know… expected to slip up like that, from time to time," he quietly mentioned, his segue having flooded back as suddenly as it had fled through door. "Hmm?" he said, having to gently shake the tip of her sparkling finger to remind her that it was her turn to talk.

She stared at him blankly, shocked, herself, by how overwhelmed the moment had rendered her.

"You're… You want me to marry you, you're saying?" she all but whispered, feeling the need to double-check, for whatever bizarre reason.

"If ya think you can stand to put up with me… Hmm?" he offered in a low and surprisingly serious tone, captivated by how soft and brown and bottomless her eyes were capable of becoming.

"Okay," was all that her absence of breath would allow her to say.

She'd barely heard what he'd said after that — something about taking this in stride; or perhaps he had said "Let's take this inside," considering he was on his feet and carrying her in his arms, now. From there, she found herself in his bed — their bed — clinging tightly to each other in stunned silence. At some point, their clothes had disappeared. At another point, he kissed her teeth.

Throughout the night, they would go on to make deeply passionate, intimate love, sleeping for short periods in between until one would awaken the other for more. Between slow, tender kisses, he had finally told her his fantasy, which he'd died a thousand deaths detailing for her. But baring his soul like that had made him feel closer to her, if that were even cosmically possible. It had also put him in even more awe of the courage she'd shown, sharing such intimate things with him right out of the gate.

She told him of another fantasy she'd been working on, compelling him to reiterate his original fear of dying at her hand of a heart attack someday.

She made him promise never to wear a t-shirt to bed so that she could always see and feel his chest. He made her promise to wear dresses for him as often as possible, so he could look at her legs.

They held hands and talked excitedly, like kids on Christmas eve, taking turns feeling the ring on her finger, and holding her hand up to the single stream of moonlight filtering into the room, to see how much they could get it sparkle in the dark.

They discussed which style of houses they were most partial to, and which neighborhood they should explore first. She asked if he liked the look of an all-stainless steel kitchen, like the one in her apartment, and he said yes, but that she couldn't have one because she was too clean. She could have a Viking stove, but that was it.

He asked if keeping the cat was a definite, and she told him yes, and that double-checking every couple of minutes wasn't going to change that any.

Realizing that their annual incomes would effectively double overnight, he dashed off a quick list for her, of the frivolous things he planned to spend her money on.

She agreed to the pool table when he'd raised the subject again, reiterating the living room provision. She wondered if he would mind, in turn, assuming the task of writing out the bills each month, explaining that she'd always found it boring and annoying. He readily agreed, recognizing the ripe opportunity to have something to complain about, like her credit card expenditures, on an ongoing, lifelong basis.

Knowing that his "housekeeper" question was tantamount to a kiss of death for Mrs. Goebels, she made it clear that she wasn't certain she wanted to lose her; that she'd still need some time to think about that.

It seemed like forever before it had even dawned on them that a honeymoon would also be part of the deal. He whispered sweet nothings about the wonders of Cooperstown, New York: home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. She suggested a hut on the beaches of Antigua, commenting on how she had always liked the way that word sounded. He offered to meet her half way, putting Niagara Falls on the table, neatly neglecting to mention that it was only a couple of hours drive-time away from Cooperstown. Unfortunately, she was good at geography and broke him down with one small, disappointed frown, like it would break her heart if they couldn't at least hold the Antigua option open. He secretly buckled on Cooperstown there on the spot, already knowing he was going to take her wherever she wanted to go, anyway.

As she explored her favorite parts of him, it reminded her of how she'd always wanted to explore the Inca ruins of Peru. Amid labored breaths, he reminded her of the political uprising threatening Lima, detailed in Division's latest weekly update. Between long wet kisses and light bites to his lips, she reluctantly agreed to move Peru to the bottom of her list. But as he switched positions and pressed his body against her, he offered to check with the Peruvian consulate about gun permits for law enforcement friendlies, moving it up to the top again, at least for now.

She brushed his thick, matted curls from his forehead while confessing her lack of talents in the kitchen, wondering if that might be a problem for him down the road. He didn't think so, unaware of how grossly his gift of foresight was failing him at that moment.

He shared his vision of the perfect wife — a woman whom, when angry with him, would throw him out of the house with his golf clubs, warning him not to return for at least four hours.

To her, the image of a perfect husband was one who changed diapers and didn't have to be pushed out of bed for 2:00 AM feedings. Her words were gifts of gold to him. He hadn't expected the subject to even come up. He immediately told her about her baby cheeks and his hesitancy to mention them before, which evoked an expression on her face so soft and tender that he cursed himself for not keeping a night-vision camera handy.

He told her that he didn't want to wait too long to get married; that the usual year-long thing was completely out of the question; that he'd go the City Hall route, if it came to that. She said he didn't need to worry; that she had heard of this incredibly talented woman, Amanda Almeida, well-known for pulling a magnificent affair together in no time flat. As if it were even possible, his heart tripled with love for her, there on the spot. His Mom had immediately come to mind when he'd decided that he wanted them married in a matter of weeks, not months. But since Michelle would probably want to, naturally, plan her own wedding, he'd decided not to bring it up.

He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was, which made her blush, even in the dark. She wondered if he knew how excited she'd become when she'd seen him in his tuxedo. He hadn't known that, making a mental note to wear it to bed some night.

He was about to ask her to promise never to break his heart when it occurred to him how many times he had already made her promise that, over the past few days.

She'd begun to fret about explaining her overnight engagement to her aunts, but he told her not worry; that they'd figure out all that family stuff tomorrow.

They exchanged personal vows with each other — the ones that don't get exchanged at the altar — his first vow being that he would always take the garbage out if she, in return, would vow not to make him exchange any vows on the altar. He hated that. It always struck him as too contrived, and either the bride or the groom, or both, would always end up crying, like you-know-who had done that very afternoon. She agreed, feeling no need to mention that she knew his real fear was not for her but for himself.

He vowed to take her out every Friday night unless they got held over at the office, or if extraordinary, unforeseen circumstances should arise; like, being taken hostage, in which case he would take her out the first evening following his release.

He awoke from another hour-long power snooze, and was about to nuzzle her, but didn't have the heart when he saw how peacefully she was sleeping. He studied her features for awhile instead, finding himself having to blink a few times, just to make sure this was all really happening. With a quick glance upwards, he remembered to thank Pop for the ring, and the overlords, too, for allowing him to keep Michelle, despite her many egregious offenses.

He gently played with the ring on her finger, relieved to know how far it would go in safeguarding her from office gawkers, come tomorrow. Fiancés tended to be viewed a lot differently. Colleagues generally didn't have the nerve to stare at fiancés in quite the same way as fraternizing lovers. There was a dignity and legitimacy about a woman who was promised to a man — particularly when the man was also the boss — and he'd wanted Michelle to be treated with the proper respect. It was one thing to gawk at Nina, but a whole other story when it came to Michelle.

Exhaustion had finally arrived on the scene. He set the alarm to go off a little on the early side, ensuring himself enough time to attack her in the shower before having to drag themselves into their clothes and car and office and reality.

Tucking her closer into his body, he closed his eyes and wallowed for a moment in a wave of joy and relief. It occurred to him that the hard part was finally over; that the only thing left was the damned wedding now, but that she would, thereafter, officially and forever belong to him: Anthony Almeida, better known and loved as Tony Almeida. The chief. The CTU Director. The Sperminator. The fiancé.

**THE END.**

**_This story continues in "LAFD EPILOGUE"! Thank you so much for your reviews! xxxooo_  
**


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